Resurgence
by PuddinFreakyStyle
Summary: (Sequel to 'Therapy') "Life's a carnival, Harley. If the carousel's spinning too fast for you, you may as well jump off now." Harley imagined everything would be perfect now that she and her Puddin' are together, but with Joker entangled in a gang war and the Batman hot on their tail, it soon becomes apparent that life with the Joker will never be the fairytale she'd dreamed of.
1. Chapter One: Mad City

**RESURGENCE**

 **Sequel to 'Therapy'**

 _ **AN: WARNING! IF YOU'VE CLICKED ON THIS STORY HAVING NO IDEA WHAT 'THERAPY' IS, YOU MAY FIND YOURSELF A LITTLE LOST AS TO WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON AT TIMES IF YOU CHOOSE TO START READING FROM HERE. IF YOU'D LIKE TO READ THE PREQUEL TO THIS TALE, WHICH DEALS WITH HARLEY'S TRANSITION FROM QUACK TO QUACKERS, YOU'LL FIND IT ON MY PAGE.**_

 _ **For the rest of you, welcome back, and prepare for a POV change- in 'Therapy', I felt that he first/past-first/present tense was necessary in telling Harleen's tale and for the joys of the unreliable narrator and us seeing her reasoning on things. For this story we open up to a much larger world outside of the asylum, and I wanted the workings of Harley's mind to be somewhat of an enigma, so a semi-omnipotent third-person perspective feels much more natural here.**_

 _ **If you are jumping in without reading therapy, you need to know this tid-bit of backstory;**_ **_in this iteration, the murder of Jason Todd (Robin #2) at Joker's hands almost a decade ago was what ended Joker's reign of madness and got him thrown into Arkham. This, as in the_ DCEU _, is what triggered Batman's descent into the darkness; he almost killed Joker for what he'd done. Before all of this, Dick Grayson had already abandoned the handle of Robin and moved to Bludhaven, taking up the role of Nightwing after Jason's murder._**

 _ **Anyway, enough of the babble. Forgive the exposition in the beginning. Read on, and enjoy!**_

* * *

 **Chapter One:**

 **Mad City**

Gotham was a city at war. Almost a year had passed since the Joker had escaped Arkham Asylum with his therapist in tow, and only now was the city coming to terms with returning to a state of being where the antics of the self-styled Clown Prince of Crime determined how they went about their daily lives. The tabloids lapped it up; first it was Smylex released at a charity event attended by Gotham's finest, where the clown had narrowly escaped the Batman. Then followed the sabotage of a newly-opened theme park, which had resulted in fifteen deaths and a dozen major injuries. It was classic Joker madness, the sort of erratic violence the people had expected from day one of his escape. Housing sales soared as those who could afford to made desperate moves out of the city, many of them remembering the clown's reign of terror a decade ago. It was only a matter of time until the city went to hell again, those citizens had reasoned; they had not been wrong.

Before the Clown had been locked away in Arkham, he and his men had gained full control over Gotham's thriving underworld; when he was finally been caught by the Batman during an agonizing chase which had ended with the brutal murder of the vigilante's colourful sidekick, it became a race to the top between the dozens of gangs and crime syndicates, and the Falcone's and the Maroni's had come out on top, establishing a fragile partnership. Their war had left many of Gotham's criminals dead, and for the duration of Joker's abscence the city had enjoyed relative peace under the watchful eye of the two families. Still, in recent years there had been relative peace between Gotham's underworld in the Joker's absence.

It was not to last. Unfortunatley for Gotham, the Joker had not forgotten his place at the top of the pecking order. The Iceberg Lounge, establishment of mob-boss-turned-club-owner Oswald Cobblepot, had come to serve as a meeting place for all of Gotham's horribles. There was a parle in place which every criminal respected, on pain of death. No weapons allowed, in order to keep the peace. Joker was not one for keeping the peace; he had marched his way into the club after two weeks hiding out from the Batman, brandishing an AK47 with twelve goons at his side, and had taken to his old booth in the club as though the past ten years were only a dream. Knowing that the Clown was not to be easily dismissed, the heads of the families had come to pay their respects to him, and had made an effort to keep him appeased.

The most unexpected thing surrounding the Joker's return was, of course, the effervescent woman who had arrived on his arm that night when he had first returned to the lounge. The girl had come as a shock to all, as no one who remembered the old days could ever have imagined Joker with a woman at his side, especially not a woman such as Harleen Quinzel had once been. The story of the Joker's therapist-turned-sidekick was a delicious one, and the media had lapped it up; everyone wanted to know the story behind this woman, this mysterious, colourful Harley Quinn.

The media used that name for her, rather than her birth name; there was a tendency to glamourize the Joker's moll, the way a magician's assistant might be coveted. Each media outlet had a different angle on this woman, threaded together from the little that was known of the truth of Joker's escape; she was a maniac, the signs should have been picked up by her superiors at the asylum long ago. Others claimed that she was just another victim, drawn in by Stockholm Syndrome. There were appeals from her parents on the news in the beginning, but that all died down eventually as she became just another piece of Gotham's mismatched furniture. All outlets agreed that she was insane, and that there had never been something like her in Joker's history before; perhaps she managed to get through to the clown in some way after all, one article mused.

Harley and the Joker were often found gracing the rooms of the Iceberg Lounge now, though their appearances would be without routine and unannounced. After the initial whirlwind of mad-cap schemes and colourful escapades which Joker orchestrated as an outlet for a decade's worth of isolation, sparring with the Batman and causing havoc, it seemed that her Puddin' had worn himself out, and was now focused on getting back to the business side of things. There were lots of meetings about hit jobs and weapon imports and money, money, money. This didn't sit quite right with Harley, who had only just discovered her love for the manic lifestyle Joker had promised; why her clown, who she had always considered the freest spirit of all, cared so much about controlling the underworld she couldn't understand. It was the megalomaniac in him, she supposed. Her inner therapist still cried out to her from time to time. She'd become quite adept at batting her away.

Bored or not, Harley had little choice but to follow where her Puddin' lead. Most nights in the club she could be found dancing in the golden heart of the club, her movements free-flowing and erratic; there was something captivating in the unashamed way she threw herself around to the music, and most nights eyes would be on her rather than the professional dancers hired by Cobblepot. If not on the dance floor, she could be found at the bar talking with the baristas and sipping cocktails whilst the clown was preoccupied or sat at his feet with her arms folded onto his lap and her high heels discarded by her side, pretending to be listening as he talked business with some mob boss or other.

Tonight she was dancing. She wore a red-and-black dress, studded with diamantes in their corresponding colours and cut to mid-thigh. The dress swung freely as she moved in time with the music, her silvery-blonde hair with its red-and-black tips dancing about her head in loose, shimmering curls. She was singing along and smiling, a diamond shape inked below her right eye. She was a vision, a mad-man's day-dream, not someone to be ignored.

All eyes followed the girl as she breezed away from the dance floor, grabbing a drink from the bar before sliding through the crowds and over to Joker's booth; through the gold chain curtains she saw a familiar face and almost burst with excitement, drawing away the gold panel and announcing her presence with a squeal.

 _"Sally!"_ she chimed, stepping over Joker's feet and throwing her arms around the man who sat opposite him in the booth. The head of the Maroni family was by far Harley's favourite of the people Joker would have grace his private corner. Salvatore was in his fifties, devilishly handsome, a waxy Italian with a razor-sharp jawline and kind, fatherly eyes. He seemed to always be smiling, and loved to laugh, which given the company he was keeping, was a favoured trait. Sally knew her father- it was from him she had finally got the full story of why Mr. Quinzel had spent so many years of her childhood behind bars. He had been working for Salvatore on a job, tasked with busting up some judge just enough that his bribeable replacement could take his place overseeing the trial of one of Salvatore's sons. The job had gone wrong, and the judge had been hurt much worse than expected; Mr. Quinzel had been caught, and woe betide, a twelve-year sentence for GBH had ensued. Harley imagined that she ought hate the Maroni's for this, but it was her father who was really to blame, wasn't it? Besides, Sally brought her chocolates; strawberry ganache, her favourite. How could she ever hate someone who brought her strawberry ganache?

Salvatore in turn adored Harley. He called her his pet and would bring her fine Italian chocolates whenever he visited, or sometimes cookies baked by his wife. She would sit at his feet eating her gifts as he and Joker discussed business, and he would stroke his fingers over her hair like she was a kitten. Most nights with Salvatore around Joker would be in a merry mood, but as Harley dove into her box of ganache with edible gold leaf detailing, she found that he seemed somewhat deflated, his expression consistently stoic.

"Cheer up, Puddin'!" Harley cooed, popping another chocolate into her rosebud mouth. She had almost eaten the whole box, but she couldn't help it. "Why you lookin' so glum?"

Joker frowned at her. The accent was beginning to grate on him; he knew that she had begun to over-play it as he had once or twice remarked that he thought her natural twang alluring. After nearly a year of that incessant screeching, it was beginning to lose its charm.

"Don't call me _'Puddin'."_

Harley pouted back at him. She knew that what he meant by that was, _'don't call me Puddin' when there's anyone else around to hear,'_ though he would never admit to such a thing.

Harley's nickname for Joker had moved like a whisper throughout Gotham's underground over the months, and now everyone had a reason to chuckle at the clown, something laughable which made him feel less threatening than the psychotic megalomaniac they knew him to be. No one ever passed mention of it to his face, of course. Still, Joker heard the accursed word hidden behind hands and whispered into ears with hushed giggles. He was all for a good laugh, but never at his own expense.

That was why, when he and Harley were leaving the club and he heard the dreaded word- or perhaps he only _thought_ he heard the word- muttered somewhere in the crowd, Joker finally snapped. He kicked over the nearest chair with an angered yell and scrambled his way atop its table, pulling his handgun and firing three shots up into the ceiling. What would usually have been met with screaming was met with only silence, as every face in the club turned to look at the man, who stood hunched over and breathing heavily, weapon still in hand. The music blared on, so Joker pointed the gun at the DJ and blasted a hole through his chest, taking out the sound system with another shot and silencing the commencing screaming with a roar of,

 _"SHUT UP!"_

As though it shared a hive mind, the room obeyed. Harley stared in shock, trying to pinpoint the cause of this outburst, knowing better than to interfere. She watched as Joker cricked his neck and brushed his fingers back through his hair and stuffed the last piece of ganache into her mouth. The room looked on in shock.

"The next person," Joker began, rolling back on his heels with an animated expression, "to say the word _'Puddin...'"_

Joker sprang upwards and fired the last of his bullets up into the main chandelier, sending shards of glass reigning down upon the club and taking out half of the bulbs. The screaming started again as Joker finished with a manic roar,

"-Is going to _become it!"_

With that it seemed that his outburst was finished. He hopped down from the table and adjusted his collar, taking a firm hold of Harley's hand and leading the way out of the back entrance to the underground car park, where Frost unlocked the Lamborghini and opened up the doors for the pair of them. Joker instructed Frost to drive, and held his head in his hand the whole drive back to their secret apartment. Harley didn't say a word for the whole journey. All Joker said on the drive home was,

"It sounded better in my head."

He said it with a groan, still not removing his head from his hand.

"I think they got the point," Frost consoled him, his voice monotonous as ever. "Do you want me to transfer any money over to Penguin? For damages?"

Joker sucked his teeth. "That wrinkled old scrote can get his own damned chandelier repaired, lord knows he has the money. And there are plenty of snotty undergraduates with sound-systems in this town who'd kill to DJ at Gotham's most notorious night-spot."

When they finally arrived home, Joker immediately pulled off his suit jacket and unbuttoned his shirt, lying back on the bed with a groan. Harley took off her shoes then removed her accessories one by one, lining them up on the dresser before kneeling beside her lover on the bed, taking his head in her hands and stroking his electric green hair. He sighed aloud and reached up to touch her wrist.

 _"'Is going to become it',"_ he repeated loudly, despair in his voice, playing his address to the club over and over. "Messy delivery. I mean, what was I going for? What is it even supposed to _mean?!"_

"I think they got it," Harley comforted, secretly smiling at the way he could get so caught up over something like this. "Don't worry about it, sweetie."

"Messy delivery, and a terrible punchline," He insisted. He looked around the room and frowned anew. "And this place is a _mess."_

"I'll tidy it up a little in the morning," Harley reassured him, pressing a glittery kiss against his alabaster cheek. He wiped it away on the back of his hand, staring at the shimmering red smear. He pulled her face down to his own and pressed a kiss to her smiling lips, tasting the cherry of her mouth. When she broke away he said the words, watched the way her face lit up as it always did. Then he got to his feet, pulled off his shoes and fell into bed still half-dressed. Harley snaked out of her dress and fell in beside him, burying her face into her pillow and wrapping her arm across his front, content in the sensation of having him there. Even now it didn't feel quite real, that he was hers and she was his.

"Sleep tight, Puddin'."

He smiled into the pillow, reaching back and brushing a hand over her own. He did like the nickname.

"Don't let the Batman bite."


	2. Chapter Two: Freakshow

**Chapter Two:**

 **Freakshow**

"I think I've got a lead on the Joker's hideout," Dick said, jumping down from the Bat-cave elevator whilst it was still in motion and landing with the same grace he'd perfected as a teenager. He took a moment to take in the extravagance around him, the towering jagged rocks and the thunderous waterfall, all woven in with the height of Waynetech technology, monitors and armouries and, of course, the famous car. Even now the place seemed too fantastical to be true and made him feel like a kid in a candy store.

Bruce was out of his suit, wearing only a pair of sweats and a tight black turtleneck. His eyes flitted across the monitor in front of him, not even acknowledging Richard with a greeting.

"You never said you were coming."

Dick tried not to frown. "Well, I did grow up here, Bruce. I used to swing from the ramparts, forgive me if I don't knock before entering."

"I've talked to Alfred about letting people down here without running it by me first."

"What _'people?'_ Me and Barbara? She'd just roll over him if he tried to stop her."

Bruce looked at him then, his expression hard. Dick raised up his hands in defence.

"I know, I know. No wheelchair jokes."

Bruce turned back to the screen. Dick came up behind him to read over his shoulder, and Bruce swiftly changed the tab. Richard took note of it but did not acknowledge it, instead getting to the heart of what he had come to say.

"There's a guy down on the docks who works for the Franz', used to tip me off when you had me looking into the import of Scarecrow's supplies-"

"Crane," Bruce corrected, "Johnathan Crane. Don't play into their fantasies."

"...Okay," Dick said, a little phased by his interference. "Anyway, he said he overheard one of Franz' sons talking about how there was some sort of a disturbance over at Cobblepot's place. You know, _the_ place, not the lounge. Which is odd, because they have a code there, a sort of no-violence-on-premises pact-"

"Criminals are criminals, Dick. They don't follow codes or rules."

"Well, this one they do. I did a bit of digging. I couldn't get my hands on Franz' son but I managed to pin down his nephew. Broke a finger or two, and it turns out everyone honours this one, the Falcone's and the Maroni's included. It's a pretty big deal, I've heard it told. _'Could start a war',_ that's what the Franz kid said. And who would be the only person in Gotham crazy enough to break a deal like that?"

Bruce frowned as his fingers tapped away at the keyboard. As much as he hated it, Dick's conclusion sounded somewhat credible, but there were a thousand other explanations than the clown.

"Probably some small-time crook, a newbie on the scene who doesn't understand how serious the rules are. Nothing to risk busting open an operation like Cobblepot's over."

"Bruce, this is the closest thing we've had to a lead on the clown in _months-"_

"-And I'm saying no," Bruce barked. "We've been gathering evidence on the Penguin case for months now. We bust in there and tear the place down, that evidence goes out of the window, loses all its credibility. Without it the new DA will never be able to pin down a conviction on a man like Cobblepot."

"But this is the _Joker-!"_

Bruce pushed a button on the desk and spoke into a small microphone, ignoring Dick in favour of his work.

"Alfred, bring down the case file on the Peyton Riley case, please."

No answer. Bruce tried again, exhaling heavily when there was still no response. Richard took Bruce's actions as a sign that there would be no more talk about the situation today.

"He was seasoning a goose when I got here," Dick noted, folding his arms. Bruce got to his feet, muttering under his breath as he headed for the elevator.

"I hate goose."

Dick stood alone for a while once Bruce had disappeared, but was quickly tempted by the workspace in front of him. There were files upon files atop the desk, police reports and autopsies and all manner of documentation on seemingly minuscule crimes, small-time thefts and security breaches and corpses found in the Gotham river, the sort of thing Bruce usually left to the GCPD.

On the computer screen was an article from the Gotham Gazette on some minor theft, but the others tabs were still open; Dick found his fingers itching to find out what Bruce had been reading, and clicked upon the second open tab without a second's hesitation. His heart skipped a little as he read the headline of the article, this one from the Daily Planet:

 _Gotham's Boy Wonder Killed in Horrific Attack_

And there he was, Jason Todd. Young and smiling and mid-flight, swinging from a grapnel wire with his dark hair in disarray. Dick quickly clicked away from the article and onto the next tab; he found another article reporting Jason's murder, and another, and another, each one more than a decade old now, dozens of retellings of the tragic story of Bruce's biggest failure. Jason quickly clicked back to the first tab the moment he heard the elevator groan, returning to his previous position and feigning innocence as Bruce sat back down, files in one hand and a plate of sliced goose and vegetables in the other.

"Alfred's done you a plate, he's insisting you stay for dinner."

"No, it's okay," Dick said, walking back towards the elevator. "...I've got plans tonight. I'll keep working on the Joker case, see what I can find. You'll do the same?"

Bruce didn't answer.

"Bruce?"

"Yes," he said dismissively, not returning Richard's goodbye when he hailed the elevator. Dick ascended the tunnel with a heavy mind, leaving Bruce down in the dark and the cold.

~oOo~

"Oh, please please please please pretty please with sprinkles on top, Puddin'?" Harley begged, practically on her knees as she squeezed Joker's hands in her own. "I swear I'll be so quiet and so good you won't even know I'm there!"

Joker shrugged his hands from her own, turning back to the mirror and adjusting the collar of his shirt.

"Only if you promise you won't be an annoyance," he muttered, holding up an orange silk tie and quickly throwing it aside in favour of a deep indigo alternative. He wound it about his throat slowly as Harley squealed with glee, throwing open her wardrobe doors and scrambling around for something to wear. She settled on a half-and-half dress in black and red that she'd fashioned from a dress of either colour; during her many hours left alone in their secret apartment, Harley had found plenty of time to fashion for herself a plethora of clothes which suited her newly-adopted jester motif. Charming as they were, they were clearly hand-made, and Joker had been promising for a long time to abduct for her a tailor who could make her some real outfits fit for Gotham's clown princess. There was no sign of it happening yet.

When they arrived at the old building Harley was bubbling with excitement. They had taken one of the dummy cars, an old second-hand thing in an unassuming shade of dirty silver with tinted windows. Harley recognised the alleyway, reliving the memories as she followed her Puddin' up the aluminium stairwell and into the dark, dripping hallways of the ACE Chemicals plant. She ran her hands along the railings fondly, following as Joker lead her to an area of the plant she hadn't seen before. There was a bolted door in a steal wall, which read,

 _'Not for staff access. Access granted for scheduled management business only.'_

"Jeez, sweetie. This place must have been a real bummer back in the day."

"Oh, those are memories I gladly lost in the chemical soup," Joker mused, typing the pass-code into the keypad on the wall and opening up the door. When they passed through, Harley saw that this area was unrelated to the chemical plant; the decor of the place was very different to that of _ACE,_ more modern, a bluish hue all around. Harley's excitement built as they navigated the building, whilst Joker seemed to become more and more reluctant to carry on. He rasped his knuckles in a complicated knock upon one of the doors and warned Harley,

"Brace yourself."

The door opened, and Gagsworthy stood the other side.

There was a sudden tirade of cheers; Joker shook Gags' remaining hand, to which the man looked completely enamored, then moved through the crowd of his employees, waving and shaking hands as he went. Joker had warned Harley that this place was where he kept the real freaks, down in his old hideout, the converted playing card factory. Here were the Joker elitists, cultists if you will, his most loyal followers who had stuck with him through thick and thin, and a new troupe of young and bewitched youths and misfits who had pledged themselves to do Joker's bidding and lived down in the dark. When they weren't out tasked with causing some chaos or other (mainly to serve as a distraction while Joker got down to some real business), they were employed in drug-cutting- the floor of the warehouse was split off into four sections, with foremen overseeing the preparation of each substance, ready to be sold on the streets.

Harley wasn't sure she'd trust most of the fanatics with such a task- all wore painted faces in homage to the clown, and some wore self-inflicted Chelsea smiles or facial tattoos professing their devotion. They hid behind bizarre clothing and seemed insatiable at the sight of their beloved leader. Gagsworthy lead Joker through the rabble and to a private room, which he quickly closed the door to, silencing the devoted crowd outside.

"What a freakshow," Gags muttered. Joker held out his arms, expectantly waiting for Gagsworthy to remove the coat which had been touched by the rabble.

"Don't let any more of them in here, Gaggy," Joker ordered.

Harley burst out laughing. The two men looked to her, surprised.

 _"Gaggy!"_ she repeated. "What a hoot!"

Gagsworthy turned a furious shade of beetroot red. He knew better than to give Harley a mouthful though, so held his tongue; Joker's face was enough to make Harley stop giggling all the same. He scowled as he made for the next door, opening it up and breezing into the small office as his two lackeys followed after him. Harley bounced ahead of the small man, desperate to get inside.

In the small office sat a man she hadn't seen in almost a year.

"Jerry!" she screamed in Glee, bouncing around Joker as he took one of the seats opposite Jeremiah's desk and sat down. Harley reached her arms out affectionately and pulled the worn-looking man into a hug, squeezing him tight and telling him how much she'd missed him.

"When we heard you'd got out I just couldn't believe it!" Harley beamed, sitting beside Joker and wrapping her arms around his neck, "and now here we are, the three of us! Jeez, this reminds me of that first time I sat in on your session with Puddin', aww, what great memories-"

 _"Quiet!"_ Joker snapped, and Harley immediately transitioned into standby mode. Her arms uncurled from about his neck and she sat still in her chair, hands folded in her lap. Joker switched on a smile.

"So, Jeremiah. Jerry. _Jezza._ I've been told you're taking good care of my money."

"The best care," Jeremiah assured him, turning his computer monitor to Joker that he might fill him in on the details. "All your accounts are in order. There's a transfer coming in from the Luthor campaign, all anonymously, of course. I've seen to the transfer of those funds to the Maroni account. I met with one of their men last night, apparently everything is in order for next week..."

Harley zoned out at all the business talk. She was happy just to look at Jeremiah, to see his face and to see that he was doing okay behind those dorky glasses. She wondered what Harleen would say if she could travel back in time to that first session and tell her that a few years down the line she'd be living with the Joker and that her boss would be their accountant. Ha! It was a small, wacky world. She wondered what Jerry would have hought of it all back then. He probably wouldn't have seen the funny side.

Harley spotted something on the desk which she'd heard too much about to ignore. She squealed in delight and reached out for the ebony mask beside Jeremiah's hand, placing it over her own face and peeping out at him through the holes.

"So this is the famous mask!" she said, interrupting again with her hands dancing either side of her head, "kinda stuffy in here. I get that you don't want everybody you talk business with knowin' that you're the famous Doctor Arkham, but is this really the look you're goin' for? It smells like a coffin in here. And the name, _Black Mask?_ I mean, how in-ya-face obvious can you get-?"

Joker quickly snatched the mask away and slammed it down on the desk, the sound reverberating through the small office. In the silence that followed he pushed it back towards Jeremiah, who cautiously thanked him and placed his hand over the dark wood.

"Don't mind her," Joker grinned, his voice a thread away from snapping. "I'm afraid that since I've taken her under my wing she's become somewhat of an _idiot._ Happens even to the best and brightest, I'm afraid."

Jeremiah clearly didn't know what to say. Harley sat in silence for the rest of the meeting, her head bowed and her muscles tense. When it was done, Joker quickly ushered her from the room, reeling her back when she sprang towards Jeremiah for a hug. He marched her out by the scruff of her dress, muttering beneath his breath as Gagsworthy lead them out by what he called the _'quiet way.'_

"You know, boss, me and the boys moved all your old gear down into the garages," Gags said, his tone hopeful. "Aint thrown none of it away. If you wanted, we could go check it out, a splash of the good old days. Most of the stuff is still in workin' order-"

"I'd rather not," Joker interrupted, pulling Harley towards the door. She span on her heel and grabbed him by the lapels of his suit jacket, pleading with him to take her to see his old wares. Joker resisted, brushing her hands away as she persisted, eventually snapping and grabbing her by both wrists, yelling in her face and calling her a foul name. Harley faulted, her eyes welling up with tears, her whole body seeming to deflate.

Joker continued to walk as she sniffled along, dragging her heels behind him and Gagsworthy. He rolled his eyes back into his head, turning back to her and relenting,

"Oh, alright! Just enough with the puppy dog eyes, please."

Harley wiped her eyes and immediately brightened, reaching up on tippy-toes and kissing him on the cheek, bouncing down the dark staircase Gagsworthy lead them to with glee and pulling at the locked door. Gagsworthy produced the keys and flung them her way, before Joker reached out a hand to stop him in his tracks.

"You stay up here, see if you can get that rabble to calm down."

Gagsworthy agreed with a dollop of reluctance, giving Joker an elaborate goodbye before moving on. Joker heard Harley scream in delight from down in the garage, a bubbling giggle echoing through the facility. He entered the vicinity with a grim expression, eyeing the garish display all around.

The huge warehouse was filled with an array of colourful oddities, old arcade machines and folded circus tents and even an old carousel. Harley bounded over to the colourful contraption in delight, climbing atop one of the mechanical horses and throwing an arm in the air, immitating swinging a lasso.

"Giddy-up, horsey! _Yee-ha!"_

She grinned at Joker. He was not paying attention, nor was he smiling; instead he stared into the reflection of a fortune teller's chamber, the vacant mannequin inside grinning back at him. Harley stood up on the back of the horse and hung from its side, supporting herself with one arm around the mannequin's pole.

"Look at me, Puddin'!"

Joker looked.

"Get down from there."

He turned back to the divination machine. Harley did as she was told, jumping down with a bounce in her step. She ran her hands along the railing of the old carousel as she went. She moved on to a stack of cardboard boxes along the rear wall, ripping one open like a child at Christmas to find it filled with packs of custom playing cards. She poured a packet out into her hand and shrieked as the cards hit her, their edges razor sharp; she kicked at the box as she examined the thin cuts to her palm, sucking at the spidery wounds until the stinging began to subside. She moved to the next box, being more careful this time, and found it filled with gag money, Joker's face printed in the centre of each note.

She threw handfuls of the counterfeits into the air, tucking a note into her bra as a souvenir, then ripped open the first of three huge plastic bin-liners to find it filled to the brim with whoopee cushions. She tore through the other two and fell back into the pile as they spilled out onto the floor, giggling her head off as the air rushed out all around her. Joker approached and she pulled him down with her by the ankles, kissing him hard on the mouth as he began to see the funny side of it, too, laughing freeley and bringing his arms around her. As he maneuvered to their feet the whoopee cushions continued to ripple below them.

"That one might of been real," Joker quipped, pulling Harley up after him and kissing her again as she giggled. Harley broke free and danced over to where an array of vehicles were tented, covered over with dense fabric sheets; Harley pulled the covering from the most oddly-shaped of the vehicles and all but screamed in excitement as she unveiled what was underneath.

The car under the sheeting was eye-popping, a bottle-green classic car, rimmed with purple and with a huge emblem of a clown's face printed on the front. Harley recognised it immediately.

"Oh my god, the Jokermobile! I remember seeing this on the news when I was a kid!"

"Don't make me feel old," Joker mumbled, burying his face in his hands. The eccentric car was complete with a bright red bulb of a nose and hypnotic-swirl eyes which, as Harley quickly discovered, span when the car was started up. Joker sat grumpily in the passenger's seat as Harley delighted at the console. She discovered that when the horn was honked, a cartoonish squeak would be emitted and the clown's red nose would begin to flash. Pressing one button sent a huge boxing glove pounding from the trunk of the car, and another shot out a metal arm from the driver's side. When Harley asked what that detail was for, Joker grudgingly admitted that it had been for flinging pies.

"Can we take it for a drive, Mr. J? Can we can we can we?!"

"I wouldn't be seen dead driving this thing," Joker misered, shaking his head in embarrassment. He'd grown tired of a lack of subtlety, these gawdy, in-your-face gimmicks. They still had a place in his performances, sure, but he liked to think that his showmanship had evolved past the blindingly obvious.

"I could drive," Harley offered.

Joker frowned at her. "You don't drive."

"Oh, how hard can it be?" Harley beamed, revving the engine and pleading with him some more. He finally relented, loosing count of the amount of times he had bent over backwards to allow her to have her way on this day. The two switched seats, and Joker ordered Harley to open up the garage door that they might drive out. Joker lamented the wonders of tinted windows as he drove out into the darkening Gotham streets, glad that they were in a somewhat rural area.

"Ten minutes, that's all you're getting, then I'm setting this damned thing on fire and forgetting it ever existed," Joker said begrudgingly, sinking low in his seat that he might go unnoticed. Harley shared none of his shame, waving at confused Gothamites as they sped down the empty streets. Joker took the courtesy of pulling up at some traffic lights as an elderly man crossed the road on a zimmer frame, who smiled at their bizarre vehicle as he passed. Harley honked the horn at some youths stood beneath a nearby subway and began to wave. The clown's bulbous lightbulb of a nose flashed red. The gang began to laugh.

"Check out the wiener-mobile," one of the boys slated, and his friends cackled in response. Harley heard a growl at the back of Joker's throat, and his hands tensed on the wheel as the old man limped his way across the road.

"What a hunk of junk," another of the kids yelled. They were clearly too young to know who the car belonged to.

"Hey Coco," one of the kids yelled, and came over to give the car a kick, "you late for some kid's birthday party?!"

The growl broke free of Joker's lips. The moment the old man's zimmer frame touched the side walk he cranked the car up to full speed, driving towards the rest of the gang with a roar. Harley knew what was coming next, and covered her eyes with a scream as she begged him to stop, but too late-

 _Bang!_ The car hit the wall with insane force, throwing both clowns forwards and almost through the window. Harley banged her head hard off the headrest as she rebounded in her chair; when she opened her eyes she saw that the gang of teens were yelling, sprinting away as fast as they possibly could, and leaning over the bonnet were two of the youths, their heads smashed up against the cracked window screen.

Harley only breathed, unable to speak. She stared at the corpses as Joker slowly reversed, allowing the bodies to fall to the floor.

"Get out of the car," Joker demanded, opening his own door and pulling out his phone, already making a call to Frost. She did as she was told, following quickly after the clown, unable to stop herself from looking over her shoulder at the two dead friends.

"We'll burn it later," Joker said, and pulled her quickly away.

~oOo~

Alfred came to the door after Dick knocked for the third time. Richard bundled his way inside, heading down towards the cave only to be surprised when the butler informed him that Bruce was not yet down there. Dick burst into the grand bedroom which had once belonged to Bruce's parents, slapping the newspaper he held down beside Bruce's head excitedly, beginning to talk even before Bruce lifted his head from the pillow.

"You see that? Two kids murdered last night by the damned Clown."

Bruce propped himself up on the pillows, disorientated. "How do you know it was the Clown?"

Agitated, Dick unfolded the paper and laid it on Bruce's lap. It was front page news, as Joker always achieved; Bruce rubbed his eyes before reading the headline. Two teenagers crushed to death by a vehicle; the photograph of the smashed-up car, blazing with flames, showed that it was Joker's old ride, no mistake. Two of the witnesses swore that the Clown's girlfriend had been in the car and that the attack had come suddenly and without cause.

Dick was feeling rather smug as he folded his arms across his chest. "You gonna tell me we still need to keep off this?"

Bruce frowned. "Later," he said, sounding exhausted, and buried his head beneath the covers. Dick narrowed his eyes but didn't argue, leaving the room with Alfred, who walked along beside him as he headed for the exit, a frown set into his face.

"He was out all night yesterday pursuing the Riley case," Alfred tried to excuse. "He's tired, give him time-"

"There's more to it than that," Richard interrupted, frowning. "He's hardly touched anything to do with the Joker since he's quietened down with the big gimmicky sprees, he's... he's blocking it out, acting like the clown doesn't exist. There's something else going on, Alfred."

The wizened old man frowned. He reached out an arm and tugged on the fiery young man's sleeve, directing him on a new course. He took him into the study and entered the pass-code into the hidden keypad beneath the desk, causing the two grand bookcases on the far wall to slide apart and reveal the elevator down to the cave.

"I'd just begun to clean up when you arrived."

Richard looked at him questioningly. Alfred said not another word, just held out a hand in a form of direction and watched Dick as he disappeared behind the sliding shelves.

It quickly became clear to Dick what Alfred had wanted him to see. The main monitor of the huge super-computer had been smashed by an armoured fist. Papers were scattered about the metal-mesh floor, drifting left and right in the low chilly breeze of the cave. Dick began gathering the papers once his surprise had diminished, and found to his sorrow that each and every document pertained to one incident- the murder of Jason Todd. Police reports, newspaper clippings, dozens of notes and, as Dick felt a twist in his stomach, photographs of the crime scene. The murder weapon lay smeared in blood beside the victim, a crowbar drenched in so much blood. It scared Richard how small Jason looked in the photographs, his body face-down, crumpled, the black cape of his costume forgivingly concealing most of the damage. A note was secured to the cape with a crossbow bolt, buried into Jason's twisted spine, the message on the blood-soaked paper barely legible;

 _In the game of the cat and the canary, the cat always wins._

 _Jokes on you, Batman!_

Dick folded the photograph in his hand. He decided he had seen enough then, and set about stuffing the muddled papers into the closest cabinet with little caution. As he turned to leave, he stopped in his tracks upon seeing a familiar splash of colour on a desk beside the elevator. Richard approached slowly, running his hands along the fabric.

He almost smiled. There was some resemblance to the costume he had worn throughout his teen years, the garishly-coloured, hopelessly hopeful Robin suit, with its red vest, lemon cape and bright green shorts. As a circus trapeze artist, he had come into Bruce's care with no qualms towards wearing an eye-popping spandex suit, and it wasn't until he's passed puberty that he realised that it was not the most flattering thing for a growing man to wear.

Dick brushed his hands tentatively over the shirt front, felt the armoured plating beneath the costume. This was one of the suits which had belonged to Jason after he had taken up the mantle of the Robin; no spandex or bright colours here. Everything was black or oxblood red. Dick felt the fabric of the heavy cape, saw how the sigil emblazoned across the chest was more refined, less cartoonish than the one he had worn. The material was weightier, armour-plated and ready to absorb damage, whereas Dick's had been light and designed to suit his acrobatic abilities. It was of a much better calibre than the suit he had worn.

Smaller, too.

Richard took his hand away. He had been eighteen when Bruce had taken Jason in, and nineteen when he had decided to leave Wayne's care and the mantle of Robin behind him, moving back to Bludhaven where his parents had grown up. Jason was three weeks away from his sixteenth birthday when he was murdered by Joker.

A lot had changed since then. It was Jason's murder that had inspired Dick to turn back to a life of vigilantism and rekindle his relationship with his former guardian. Jason's death had changed Bruce too, irrecoverably; the man he had reconciled with was no longer the man who had raised him. He was harder, less willing to empathize or compromise. He was colder, too, more distant.

Dick Rubbed at his hands. He felt unclean somehow, wrong for having laid hands on this memory of the boy who had once been. He took one last look at the shattered screen and fled the cave, the photograph of the murdered boy tucked inside his jacket.


	3. Chapter Three: Consequences

**Chapter Three:**

 **Consequences**

Sat in the back at a meeting with the Maroni's and bored almost to tears, Harley had given up on paying attention to what was being said. She'd listened as they'd rambled on about shipments but lost interest by the time they'd moved onto what would be done with said shipments. She reminded herself to never again to ask to come along to one of these things. She focused instead on the gold-leaf chocolates which Salvatore had brought for her, letting each one melt in her mouth; that and Sally's two sons whose names she could never remember, a pair of dashingly handsome 30-somethings with their father's looks but none of his jovial warmth. Harley would steal glances between the pair of them, trying to decide which of the two was better looking. Joker was paying her no attention, too wrapped up in his discussions with Sally, and Harley reasoned that there was no harm in looking when the view was so good.

The meeting with the Maroni's was all talk of shipments and money transfers and besting the Falcone's, same old same old, money money money. She knew for a fact that Joker had had similar meetings planning the Falcone's downfall with the Maroni's, but he insisted to her that those were all for show. She still couldn't understand why her Puddin' cared so much about his influence with the underworld; before she had given herself to him, she had pictured him as always being the way he was in the newspapers. The insane schemes, the outlandish outfits, the smiles always there. Then again, she supposed that the nature of underworld activity was that it didn't reach the newspapers at all.

There hadn't been a sniff of adventure since her and Joker's initial rampage, unless she counted that incident with the old car, and Harley certainly wasn't; that had been no fun at all. The bruising beneath her eye which she had powdered away proved that. Bored of the proceedings, Harley took her box of chocolates and excused herself from the meeting room, winding down the corridor and re-entering the club; the music pulsed inside her skull as she crossed the threshold, the world turning from old-fashioned decor to a glittering gold wonderland. The chandelier had been replaced, a new DJ hired, who she soon found had an annoying habit of blending songs halfway through, making the atmosphere and the intoxicated swarm on the dance-floor move jauntily, on edge.

Harley twisted her way through the crowd and found a seat at the bar, which was quickly offered up by a nervous-looking man. Selina was working the bar, all dolled-up in a pinstripe mini-dress with gold glitter spritzed into the front of her cropped dark hair. She smiled at Harley, and leaned across the bar for an embrace and a kiss on the cheek.

"You look great," Harley said, squeezing her friend tightly. She didn't really have friends anymore. Selina and Candy were the only people outside of Joker's circle that she was allowed to talk to.

Selina frowned when she noticed the ill-concealed bruising. "Again?"

Harley tried for a smile, shrugging it off. She offered Selina one of her chocolates and pretended like nothing was the matter. When candy came over to say hi, she said nothing of it; she had been in plenty similar relationships with wack-jobs, though granted they were nowhere near as whack-jobby as Joker. She'd been at the brunt of men's fists too many times before, and had finally learned to walk away from such things; but for Harley, walking away would never be an option. She and Candy had spoken about it before- it was out of the question to advise Harley to try and reason with the man on the issue, let alone threaten to leave him. It was an impossible situation, and in truth, Harley was lucky that these bruises were as intense as things had gotten so far. Selina didn't feel the same way.

"You should leave that jerk," she said boldly as she poured an amaretto for the woman beside Harley at the bar, one of the dancers who was buzzed out on some illegal substance or other.

"Make me one of your Hurricane things, will ya, kitty cat?" Harley implored, "a real one, with a shot of the good stuff in it. Screw virginity."

"Good girl," Selina said, and set about making Harley the potion.

"You sure?" Candy said as she overheard. "You-know-who doesn't like you drinking."

"Yeah, well he's busy with the Maroni crew. They're taking business... _boring."_

The three women talked for a long while as Harley sipped at her alcoil Candy was called away to man the bar on the presentable side of the club. One drink lead to another, and soon enough Harley was teetering on the edge between tipsy and intoxicated. Sensing this, Selina began topping Harley up with glass after glass of water, hoping to sober up before her abrasive boyfriend marched in and found his paramour in such a state. Eventually a customer slid onto the stool beside Harley's and asked for some obscure beer which the bartender had never heard of. Candy hurried down to the cellar to fetch some, and Harley noticed that the young man's left hand was bandaged up.

"Ouchie," she said, reaching across and poking at his wrist. "That doesn't look like fun. What happened, you get bit by a bulldog?"

"Something like that," the sour young man replied. When he saw who he was sat beside, he froze up a little. Harley didn't seem to notice.

"What's your name?" She asked.

"Paris," he said with some reluctance, weary of her.

"Ain't that a girls' name?"

He frowned. Harley poked at him again, brimming with a smile. "Aww, I'm only teasin'. I'm Harley, pleased to meet'cha."

"I know," Paris said, still frowning. Harley looked at him sideways, recognising him now that she was really looking.

"Say, don't I know you? Sorry, my memory gets a little screwey sometimes. Probably all the chemical waste." She laughed to herself. _More likely the alcohol,_ she thought, as she took one last sip and finished off her drink.

"Ooh, I got it!" she said, snapping her fingers with a smile and pushing away the empty glass. "You're one of Sally's little underlings, aren't you?"

"I-"

"Yeah, I knew I'd seen you around. Hope you're all ready for tomorrow's special delivery."

"...What delivery?"

"The shipment tomorrow night, silly," Harley chimed, even more giggly than usual. "4PM, down at the docks... you gotta brush up on your organisational skills, I know you're job better than you do! And they say I'm slow."

Paris shook his head, smiled, his demeanour changing. "Oh yeah, of course. 4PM at the docks. My memory gets a little screwey too sometimes."

Harley patted him on the head in comradery. "Good job you've got Harley to lend a helping hand... looks like you could do with one at the mo. What happened then, if it wasn't a pitbull? Shitzu? Yorkshire Terrier?"

Selina returned shortly after, the crate of beer clutched in her hand. Upon seeing the two at the bar she hurried over, interrupting their conversation.

"Harley," she said in a half-whisper, eyes wide. "What are you _doing?"_

Harley looked up at her, still smiling. Paris took that as his cue to move on, grabbing his beer and scarpering. Selina watched him go, eyes wide as Harley reached across for shoulders that were no longer there, about to announce that she had made a new friend in Paris.

Selina snapped her fingers at Harley, her voice trill with worry. "Why were you talking to him?"

"Relax, kitty! I am allowed to talk to other men, you know. He's one of Sally's boys-"

"No he isn't, Harley!" Candy cried, "Jesus Christ! That was one of Carlos Francesco's nephews. The Francesco's work for the _Falcone's."_

In her clouded mind, Harley pictured Carmine Falcone, with his round belly and his comb-over and his hatred for the Maroni's. She pictured all of the meetings like the one being held right now, all in private quarters to avoid the interference of the Maroni gang, to ensure that the combined affairs of Joker and the Falcone's ran uninterrupted. She pictured Joker's face when he discovered her mistake, pictured his fist flying at her over and over again, and perhaps never stopping.

She looked to her bartender friend with a look of concern, and bit so hard at her bottom lip that she could taste the blood beneath the skin.

"Ah, _crap cakes."_

~oOo~

"Frost," Joker called to his right-hand man, pacing the room with steady, quiet steps. "Tell me how it happened."

It was the next night. Harley had said nothing of her foible at the bar last night. She sat between Salvatore's handsome sons and ripped her fingernails to shreds. The ornate grandfather clock resting against the far wall ticked loudly; the time was just coming up to seven, and this emergency meeting at Penguin's club just as the nightspot was opening its doors had put the place into quite a fluster. Her eyes trained on the way her lover's knuckles crackled and tensed as he moved about in front of the men who had been involved in the operation; five of Joker's men and five of Maroni's, a trait rarely seen in men such as them.

"We arrived on the sight for the pick-up and the couriers were nowhere to be found," Frost droned, inanimate as ever. "When we opened up the shipping crate it was empty, apart from the couriers, tied up and gagged."

The couriers were still tied up and gagged, left in the corner of the room. Frost went on to tell the room that their testimony had been that they couldn't remember a thing, as though they had been drugged.

"This is a delacation," interjected Umberto, the older of Salvatore's two sons.

 _"Declaration,"_ corrected Pino, his younger brother. "He's right, though. The Falcone's know, someone must have snitched. If they know about the money, they know where it's coming from. They know that we're ready to take over. We all know what this means."

"War," their father agreed, who had been quietly nursing a diamond-barrel tumblr of whiskey since the meeting had begun. Joker laughed out loud and for a moment it seemed he was about to say something, but there was a flickering in his eyes and he dismissed the thought with the wave of a hand.

Harley knew that look, and would have tried to figure out what she and everyone else seemed to be missing if it were not for the fact that she was becoming more and more anxious with each passing moment, praying that the truth would not come out. She had tried to find the Franz kid after their conversation last night, but he had already disappeared. She had hoped to discredit what she had told him about the shipment, or at least bribe the young man into keeping her secret; Harley had come to the cowardly conclusion that it was best just to keep quiet on the whole thing and pray that Paris would be either too drunk or too stupid to do anything with the information.

She realised now more than ever that she was the stupid one. She watched the altercation hoped to God that things would somehow run smoothly.

"Somebody- _somebody in this room-_ knows something," Joker seethed as he continued to pace, and it seemed as though his roving eyes were on every face at once. "We're not talking about a dip in the pot here. This was eight million dollars. One of you gave it up. It will be a lot less painful should you confess now. I can be surprisingly lenient when I want to be."

Harley gulped. She knew first-hand that there was little truth to his words. Sally sat with a look less of rage and more of disappointment. Joker had enough rage for the pair of them; the smallest of the underlings had taken quite the beating at his hand before the meeting had even begun, and sat slumped so swollen with bruising that Harley doubted he would even be able to confess if he had reason to.

"There are consequences," Joker said, and Sally nodded along without looking up from his drink.

"Here's an idea. There are ten of you, and you each have ten fingers." Joker pulled out a gold-hilted switchblade. "Ooh, just imagine the things I could do with one-hundred fingers-!"

"Eighty fingers," Pino Maroni corrected. Joker turned to him sharply, his expression questioning.

"Come again, _amico mio?"_

"There's eighty fingers between 'em," Pino expanded, his face and voice expressionless but for his accent, "an twenty thumbs."

"Thumbs ain't fingers," Umberto agreed, as dryly as his sibling. Joker looked between the pair of them, completely thrown by their interjections, and Harley wondered if there might be some truth to the things people tend to say about those with pretty faces. Their father muttered something to them in Italian, and the eldest of the two brothers encouraged Joker to go on.

The clown did just that. "Anyway; ten men, ten... _digits,_ ten chances each to confess. I think those odds are more than fair. Should I run out of fingers and thumbs to butcher, I'll start cutting off more _sensitive_ body parts."

As the first man was pulled up to face confession, Frost and Sally's right hand man holding him to the table as he struggled, Harley tried to calculate just how many severed fingers weighed up against the price she'd have to pay should she do what she knew to be the right thing and confess to her idiocy. It turned out that the answer was not one, nor was it two. As the men took alternating turns to be pulled up and mutilated, Harley found that by the forth victim she could stand it no longer. As Pino began to vomit at the sight of all the blood _("He's haemophobic,"_ Sally quickly excused) and Umberto began to heave at the sight of all the vomit _("He's emetophobic,"_ Salvatore once again piped up) and the fifth petrified man was pulled screaming to be pushed down upon the bloody desk, Harley stood from her chair and squealed,

 _"Puddin'!"_

Joker's face dropped. He stopped mid-laughter and turned from his intended victim, blood splashed upon the cuffs of his sleeves. Everyone in the room stared after him, including the men waning from shock and blood loss on the floor and the sickly brothers. Harley suddenly felt more terrified than she had ever before in her life, even more so than when her clown prince had almost squeezed the life from her throat on the floor of a dank and dismal therapy room. She swallowed down the rising lump in her throat and confessed in a weak voice,

"It was my fault."

Joker didn't react for a moment. Soon enough, though, he wiped the bloodied blade on the lapel of Frost's expensive suit, then rose like an atomic cloud and drifted from his position behind the desk to stand before Harley.

"Your fault," he repeated.

Harley could barely manage a nod.

"Care to explain?"

She did. In a whisper, she told him all about what had happened last night, exaggerated things to try and make her way out of this as easy as possible. When she had told the full story of her stupid mistake, emphasising that she was very, very drunk and very, very sorry, Joker closed his eyes and nodded his head.

The clown seemed to be wonderfully calm for a moment. For a fraction of a second Harley though he might show some semblance of reason, might forgive her this transgression without punishment. The dark glare when his shadowy eyes opened back up quickly told her that that was folly. She didn't have time to flinch as he grabbed her by the arm, gloved fingers tensed as he began to pull her from the back room, through the unusually quiet club and to the nearest place which promised privacy- the women's bathroom. Joker pushed the girl through the door and ordered the giggling horde of gold-clad women to flee before he gutted them, snarling at the tottering troupe as they]did as they were told. Harley watched the door swinging enviously as they left, saw that Frost was outside keeping guard, ensuring that no one would come in, and that she would have no way of getting out. Harley was terrified.

"Now come on, sweetie..." she tried, her hands raised in surrender as she backed up across the room. Reasoning with him would be of little use; Joker was angrier than she had seen him in a long time.

Joker asked her again for the story. Harley repeated it in a trembling tone, how she had drunk too much and convinced herself that she recognized Franz as a friend rather than a foe, how she had let slip of the plans at the docks.

"I'm sorry," she repeated for what could have been the twentieth time. "We can find a way to get your money back offa the Falcone's-"

"It's not about the money, you insufferable little idiot," Joker snarled at her. Joker grabbed her wrist and pushed her back against the tiled wall, her head smacking off the icy surface. When Harley's vision focused, she saw that the blade he held was back in his hand.

"You're just as stupid as the rest of them. Don't you think I've already let slip to Falcone that the Maroni's are ready to take what little hold they have left over this cesspit of a city from them? Don't you think I've told the Falcone's that I'll be all too willing to help them when the time comes? I'm playing them against each other, you idiot. I'm going to sit back and watch as they tear each other to shreds, and with both of them decimated, who comes out on top?"

"You do," Harley said, unsure of whether or not he wanted her to answer. He nodded.

"I do. Falcone would never be stupid enough to order a hit like this knowing what it could cost him. That's my money being shipped in, not Maroni's; besides, why would his men have left the couriers alive to tell the tale, hmm? A clue- they wouldn't have. If this was a war those snivelling wretches would be at the bottom of the Gotham estuary. So tell me, my dim-witted darling... who spares lives?"

Harley looked up at him, eyes wide. She knew where he was going with this, she was sure.

"...The Batman?"

Joker laughed aloud and smacked his hand off the wall beside her head, causing Harley to nearly jump out of her skin. His eyes had lit up at the mere mention of his mortal enemy.

"No, not the _Batman!_ He's not so modest as to just take the money and run. All those men would be rotting in the GCPD by now, nursing far worse wounds that what I've inflicted upon them tonight. No, we're dealing with a thief... truth is I'm not sure who, but I'll get to the bottom of it soon enough."

"You always do," Harley said, praising him in an attempt to soften the coming blows. He saw what she was doing, and it irritated him.

"Tell me again, what was the name of the wretch you spewed my secrets to?"

"Paris Franz," Harley gulped, then corrected herself. "At least that's what he calls himself. Kitty said he-"

"Who's Kitty?" Joker barked, and his grip on her wrist tightened. Harley stopped, froze up.

"One of the staff," she said dismissively. "We talk sometimes."

"You talk too much. What have I told you about making friends?"

"We're not _friends,"_ Harley insisted, adding water to the wine in hopes of keeping Selina out of it. "He's one of the Francesco boys."

Joker left her there a moment, called Frost inside and began to talk with him about finding the Francesco's. Harley allowed herself a sigh of relief, certain that her Puddin' had forgotten about her, at least for now. Her calm quickly deteriorated when Joker dismissed Frost and turned back to her, twisting the point of the blade against the tip of his forefinger testingly.

She saw the rage expanding within him once more, quickly and without provocation as though he had flicked a switch, reminded himself that he was to be angry with her. It fell over his eyes in a dark haze, and Harley knew then that her escape was not to be so easy.

"Harley, Harley, Harley," Joker said, his tone the only calm thing about him. He brought his fingers up under her chin, his lips almost touching her own as she cringed away, her temple pressed to the tiled wall. She could feel the heat of him, the way he was boiling inside. "You know I never _want_ to hurt you."

To Harley, as much as she hated the thought of it, that sounded like a lie. She closed her eyes and folded into herself, whispering weepy apologies, trying to make herself very small.

"But, as I said to the boys... there are _consequences."_

He danced the steel of his blade lightly over her throat, just against the skin, its touch as gentle as a kiss.

What came next was not so gentle.

 **~oOo~**

Richard drove to Wayne Manor in a rented service van with a smile on his face, singing along to the music on the radio with the windows rolled down and his sunglasses on, despite the time just coming up to eight o'clock in the evening. He felt like the cat who'd got the cream and could not wait to show his work to the men who had raised him. He thought, perhaps, that this would be the turning point, the proof that Bruce needed to kick him back into gear.

Dick had thought long and hard about what he might do, what he would say. He was always grateful to Bruce; Wayne Manor had been the first home he had truly known, his childhood spent travelling from city to city with Haly's circus, the whole Grayson family living out of trailers. The things Bruce had taught him, his training as the Robin, had led him to the life he had today. He could never have become Nightwing without the Batman, and having the backing of a rich benefactor was never something to be scoffed at.

Still, there were things that needed to be said, and he was one of the few people who had the privilege of being able to tell the Batman what to do. He knew that the two of them would never again have that fatherly bond he remembered from his childhood, the synergy they had once shared, but he could still get through to Bruce in this, he was sure. He played the coming scenario out in his head as he met Alfred at the door and asked him to summon the billionaire. When his mentor came to the door in his dressing gown, face unshaven and eyes rusty with sleep, he found Dick in the process unlocking the back doors to the hired truck. He pulled them swiftly open, revealing the spoils of the afternoon's work.

Bruce frowned at the piles of bound money, crate upon crate of the notes stacked from floor to ceiling inside the huge truck. He cleared his throat and spoke in a dry voice.

"Care to explain?"

Richard smirked, removing his sunglasses. "My contact with the Falcone's. He had information on one of the Maroni shipments-"

 _"'Contact?'_ You mean that kid whose hand you broke?"

It was Dick's turn to frown. He hated it when Bruce shot him down. "It was _two fingers._ I got there before the exchange went down and relieved the couriers of their drug money. _Joker's_ money, so says the word on the street."

"You shouldn't have chased after this on your own. Have you told Gordon about this money?"

"Jim or Barbara?" Bruce scowled. "A _thank you_ would be nice, Bruce."

The lines in Bruce's forehead deepened. "How much is there- five, ten million? It's nothing, Dick. No great victory. To the Maroni's and their enterprise that's the equivalent of a stubbed toe, a bruised ankle."

"Then help me cut the head off the snake," Dick implored, using this as his avenue. "I scoped it out afterwards, Johnny Frost turned up. Between us we could have got to him, made him give us Joker's location-"

"I've been busy," Bruce said, as though that were enough.

"Bullshit," Dick said, not unkindly. "You're looking into what, the murder of a ventriloquist?"

"The Riley case is-"

 _"Not important._ Nowhere near as important as _this."_ Dick gestured to the money. Bruce still did not look interested.

Richard changed tactic, decided simply to say what he had come to say.

"Listen, Bruce. I understand how you're feeling. I know that you don't want to face him after what he did to you... what he did to this family. I know that it broke you."

Bruce seemed startled. "This has nothing to do with-"

"Yes it does, Bruce," Dick said sadly. "It has everything to do with it. You can't stand to think of him out there, doing the things he's doing. You can't bring yourself to face the clown because you can't face what happened to Jas-"

"You feel responsible for that woman," Bruce snapped, turning the tables. "That's why you won't let this go. You feel guilty about Harleen Quinzel."

Dick recoiled, stunned by his response. "Where did that come from?"

"You think she's just another victim, that we should have done more, but she _chose_ the clown-!"

"That's not what this is about!"

"Don't kid yourself!" Bruce yelled back defensively, trying to shift the blame. "She made her choice when she pulled you off your bike and shattered your forearm-!"

"Don't you turn this on me! I'm out there trying to fix this thing, you're the one with the fucking problem!"

Things quickly spiralled out of control, and the two men shouted over one another until Alfred came out of the house, to find the two arguing in front of the open truck.

"Jason is gone!" Richard yelled, grabbing Bruce's collar so that he could not help but listen. "He's _gone._ You're letting the Joker run wild because you're too afraid to face this!"

Bruce pulled away. He gestured for Alfred to return inside and marched back to the house as Dick continued to rage, began to chase him up the steps.

"Jason is dead, Bruce! He's _dead!"_

Bruce shut the door in Dick's face. Richard slammed his hands against it, demanding that he or Alfred open it, continuing to shout and slam at the mahogany until his knuckles hurt.

"You can't just hide away from this!" Dick roared, slamming again at the door, "the show doesn't end just because you choose to stop watching!"

There was no sign of life from inside the manor. Dick closed his eyes, imagined Alfred pacing after Bruce, trying equally hard to talk sense into the man they both cared for so dearly. Richard took a deep breath, turning back to the van and staring at the bundles of cash inside, thinking just how little worth it held after all. He closed the doors on the money and climbed inside the truck, his mind turning back to the last time he had driven away from the manor with rage in his heart. He tried to let go of that, closed his eyes and waited for a coolness to settle in his mind.

"Well," he said to the steering wheel, turning the keys in the ignition. "If you want something done right..."


	4. Chapter Four: The Italian

**Chapter Four:**

 **The Italian**

Harley woke the next morning with an ache in her cheek and a bitterness in her heart, sour memories of the night before curdling inside her.

Candy had been the only one brave enough to go into the women's bathroom after the screaming had stopped and Joker had made his exit, his dress-coat removed and the shirt beneath it bloody. The bartender had found Harley trembling at one of the sinks in her stilettos, Joker's blazer covering her shoulders. Selina had not been on shift, but she had come in soon as Candy made the phone call. When she arrived, Harley was finally up on her feet again, with Candy wiping blood from her face as the battered girl bit down on a wad of bunched-up tissue paper, still crying. Selina had done her best to help, muttering her outrage at the clown the whole time, and it had been more than two hours before Frost bothered to retrieve Joker's muse; Frost had offered his arm to Harley with what she could have sworn was a slither of sympathy in his cold eyes, and he had lead her from the club and driven her back to the apartment. Once home, he had made Harley a warm drink and dosed her up on paracetamol before sending her to bed with a reassuring promise that the Clown would be far too busy for the rest of the night to so much as give a thought her way.

Harley was glad when he did not come, and that her bed remained empty. Back at the asylum, Harley had spent hours with Dr. Arkham debating whether or not the Joker was a sociopath or a psychopath. Jeremiah had sometimes argued that he was cold, cripplingly clever, a hunter who could weave a plan so well that a person would not even know a trap had been laid. Harley had argued differently. She believed him to be more sociopathic; impulsive, detached from the emotions of those around him but still capable of feeling emotions for himself and those very close to him; she had always secretly hoped to be one of those. In the end, they had decided that he was somewhere in between, or maybe even something beyond definition, something which was all together his own. Harley saw plenty of impulsiveness within the tiled walls of the women's bathroom of Penguin's club that night, but no semblance of the love she had wished for.

When she woke she was glad to find that Joker was still not home. She dragged herself to the bathroom to assess the damage. She was bruised from head to heel, ugly purple patches blossomed sporadically across her skin, her lip swollen and the makeup which she had taken no care to remove smudged across her skin. She could taste metal, and every now and then was still swallowing back wads of her own blood.

Harley opened her mouth wide and struggled to see the worst of her wounds. She took a finger and pressed it ever so lightly to the sore area, moaning aloud as the pain shot through her jaw like a bullet.

Harley had not known what to expect when, after a series of punches and painful kicks, Joker had called for Frost to hand him the pliers. Under normal circumstances her first thought would have been, _'Why in the name of Laurel and Hardy has Frosty got a pair of pliers to hand,'_ But with Joker kneeling on her chest with his fingernails curled into her throat, she was more concerned with what the madman planned on doing with the equipment. When Frost had handed him the tool, he had delivered a spite-filled lecture to Harley on her own stupidity before kneeling on her arms so that she had no chance of breaking free. He had ended his speech by insulting her wisdom teeth, telling her that her that they were clearly doing her no favours as she was still such an irritating little fool.

It was at that point that Harley understood the reason for the pliers, and had begun to struggle twice as hard as Joker laughed down at her, pinching her nostrils closed until she had no choice but to open her mouth, then struggled against her biting teeth as he rooted around for a secure grip with the menacing tool, spitting at her that he didn't mind destroying her back teeth as her smile would stay pretty without them.

The sound of her own screaming still echoed as a memory in her ears, her pleas for his mercy drowned out as the blood had begun to flow in her mouth, the red taste of iron rich in her throat, choking her. It just so happened that pulling the teeth of someone struggling wildly against you was a much more difficult task than Joker had anticipated; the gusto of his rage had simmered halfway through and he had given up, having only succeeded in cracking two of Harley's wisdom teeth. She wept throughout the whole ordeal, and once he'd grown bored he had cradled her in his arms, before bundling his jacket over her shoulders and leaving her there, sobbing and alone on the bathroom floor.

Ice. That's what Harley needed. She rooted around in the freezer and soothed her cheek with a handful of the stuff wrapped in a cloth, taking herself back to bed with warm milk, candyfloss and painkillers. When Harley heard the door to the apartment unlocking, she buried her head beneath the covers and pretended to be asleep. Joker sprang into the room with a smile on his face, greeting her as though nothing had happened. With him he brought Frost, who in turn brought a terror-stricken man at gunpoint; he carried a medical case. Joker fell upon the bed and bundled Harley up in his arms like a baby, showering her with kisses across her shoulders and asking her how she was feeling. Harley said nothing, stunned. Disgruntled by her silence, Joker snapped his fingers and ordered the frightened man to get to work.

The man laid his steel case out on the bed and opened it, revealing an array of medical supplies which Harley recognised. His hands moved over the tools as though he were performing a healing, before settling on an extraction tool which he examined from behind thick glasses.

"You're a dentist?" Harley said through her swollen mouth, one hand pressed into her tender throat.

"Well I did think of calling a gynaecologist but I thought they might not be quite as equipped for the job," Joker said into her ear. He tickled Harley's hands as the practitioner prodded around inside her mouth and administered a numbing injection; when the effects were established, Harley squeezed her eyes shut tight as the man sat her down in a hard-backed chair and set about removing the remains of the cracked tooth. When it was done Joker listened to the man's bumbled aftercare instructions before thanking him for his services and telling Harley to do the same.

"Fwank yough," Harley blubbered, her mouth still numb from the anaesthetic. Frost lead the dentist from the apartment, leaving the couple alone.

Harley spat blood into a cup. Joker handed her a cotton pad to bite down on.

"What a nice man," he smiled, helping Harley back into bed and rearranging the covers over her. "Shame Frost will have to blast his brains out, but such is show business... well... dentistry-business."

Harley became alert, sitting up against the pillows. "Hbe's gonna kiyull him?!"

"Well Harley, we can't have that old coot running to the cops and telling them all about our little hideaway, now can we?! Besides, you shouldn't pity a dentist. Sadistic little creatures. Think of how many sugar-addicted children will smile their rotten-toothed smiles when they learn that theirs has been dispatched. Ooh, and I found your friend, _Monseuir Paris._ The two of us played the finger game. He already had two broken, so I decided to start with those; didn't even cut through the first pinkie before he was singing like a canary in a coal mine. And there, my darling, lies the true beauty of this tale; that snivelling wretch has been working with your other best friend."

Harley's heart sank. "No, Puddin', Selina's got nuffing to do with this, she was there when I-"

"No, not Penguin's whore, you bubble head. Think bigger... _buzzier..._ oh, I'll just tell you. It was the Nightingale!"

That revelation hit Harley somewhere deep. _Nightwing,_ she thought, but did not correct him aloud.

"Really?" she mused, trying to keep her tone whimsical.

"Re-he- _healy!"_ Joker grimaced, his nails tight against her skin. "Imagine that, the two of you crossing paths again. You were always too friendly with that freak."

Joker's voice was light, but Harley could hear the danger lurking beneath his tone. She folded her arms, blew hair from her face.

 _"Stalked by,_ more like. I'm glad I ain't seen that bird-bwain since I dropped him offa his bike."

"Ah, the memories," Joker said, and this time his laugh was genuine. "I'll get my hands on him soon enough, don't you worry. It's nothing less than _insulting,_ the Bat sending that brat rather than turning up himself. It's almost like he doesn't care; I've half a mind to just turn up at city hall and wave my arms about until he decides to take notice. Sends his errand boy... that greasy little Elvis impersonator is probably spending all of my hard-earned cash on motorcycle rims and hair gel."

Harley giggled. It almost felt as if she were off the hook. "What does Sally have to say abwout it?"

Joker flicked her in the side of the head. "I haven't told the Italian about it, _dummy._ Let him think it's Falcone's doing. The closer those two fools are to tearing each other apart, the better."

Harley drew back from him. "I fouwght you liked Sally."

"Oh, I _do,_ sweetness. Of course I do. But men like Salvatore Maroni... well, they think the world _owes_ them something. They've been born into steady money, _seedy_ money, generations upon generations of them crawling around the underbelly of the world living like kings. Just look at his idiotic sons; they have hardly enough intelligence between them to fill a thimble, yet they parade around like they own this town. _I_ own this town, Harley. And you, as my not-so-better half, own it by association. Fools like those don't deserve a pot to piss in, never mind control of an empire, which is what they'll inherit when their old man kicks the proverbial bucket, so they all have to go. You see, that's why I enjoy men like Frost; he was nothing before I dragged him up from the gutter. He expects nothing, because he comes from nothing. These old-school mafioso families with their ceremony and their rules need to be squashed, Maroni's and Falcone's alike. Picking a side and pitting the two against each other is the easiest way to do it. I do like Sally, adore him even; he's jovial, charming, hospitable... like a puppy. But puppies only stay cute for so long."

Harley felt sick, and not just from all the blood swishing around in her stomach. Joker saw her expression and kissed his teeth at her.

"Oh, don't be upset. I'll make sure you still get your chocolates."

He pressed a cold finger over her swollen lips.

"Not a word to anyone about this. In fact, I don't want you talking to anyone besides me and Frost. You are, for lack of a better word, _grounded_ for the foreseeable future. After all, you need time to heal. Understood?"

Harley nodded. "Got it."

He nuzzled his long nose against her own. "You are a _delight."_

Harley smiled, touched his face gently.

"Do... do you love me, Mr. J?"

Joker pulled back, looked at her with a sudden concern. His voice was quiet, expression slightly pained.

"I've kept you around this long, haven't I? You know I do."

Harley smiled at him, and tried for a laugh. Her arms curled about him and she kissed the space below his ear, brimming with a sudden burst of emotion.

"I just love to hear you say it."

Joker kissed her before reaching for a bottle which Frost had brought along and spooning a good few mouthfuls of some bitter-tasting medicine into Harley's mouth, smiling.

"You get some rest now. poppet. They say sleep is the best medicine, though I find morphine works much better."

Harley couldn't have given him a response if she'd tried. Within minutes she was falling asleep, Joker stroking her silvery hair as she rested her head against the feathered pillows.

~oOo~

Joker changed into a fresh suit and made himself presentable before heading for the parking lot, his spatz clipping against the concrete as he headed over to the silver Sedan. As he approached, Johnny Frost stepped from the driver's seat and greeted his boss with a nod.

Joker returned the gesture. "Any chance he's still breathing?"

"Won't be much use to us dead," Frost shrugged, and popped the trunk of the car. "Let's find out."

Crushed inside the trunk was the squirming figure of Paris Francesco, eyes wide with panic as he stared up at the face of all of Gotham's nightmares.

"Ah, Mr. Franz," the clown said, his face a smiling mask. He ran his alabaster fingers along the rim of the truck, laying them to a rest on Paris' bloody shoulder.

"You and I need to have a _talk."_

 _~oOo~_

Dick hadn't manufactured much of a plan by the week's end, but he was rather pleased with what he had come up with. His decision to make an ally of Paris Franz had been a fruitful one; Paris, Richard knew, was the in that he needed to get closer to the Clown, and there was only so long he could rule over him through intimidation. Instead, he had offered to give to Paris one million dollars from the stolen shipment at the year's end, providing he continued to help Dick when he needed it. The rest of the money had been anonymously donated to a variety of different charities- well, most of it, anyhow. Vigilantism was not a paying occupation, and without the backing of the Wayne fortune to lean back on, Dick thought it about time he invested a little in his future.

Today, his future took the form of a pair of designer sunglasses and an Armani jacket that fit perfectly. Things seemed to be going well for Richard, in spite of all that had happened with Bruce; he had a plan, he had money, and he had confidence enough in himself that he would be able to prove to Bruce that he was in the right all along.

His plan was no feat of great genius, and it would require some patience- not Dick's strongest hand- but he was sure it would work all the same. He had decided that he would have Paris introduce him into the Francesco family as a friend; he had the look, and with a fake name and a long albeit counterfeit family history, Dick imagined that it couldn't be too hard to find oneself a place as a lackey working for one of the minor Caporegimes of the Falcone organisation. That way he could work his way up undercover, get himself an invitation into the Penguin's underground spot, and thereby get himself closer to the Joker. He'd even chosen his fake name already; Lino Gamboni. He had always liked Italian names. _Got a certain ring to it,_ he had thought, as he's practised saying the name aloud, playing up his Bludhaven accent. _Anything's better than Dick,_ he reasoned.

That's was why, when the text message came through that afternoon, Dick felt rather stumped over what he should do. He had purchased a throwaway phone that he and Paris might keep in touch, and had been hit with a message which read,

 _U gotta meet me the usual time n place tonight, something's come up we got 2 talk._

 _-P_

Richard sneered at his text speak, something which he found more and more infuriating with each exchange the two had. Still, Paris was useful, and the two had even shared a few laughs since their relationship had evolved from one of oppressive fear to one of mutual benefit. Dick re-read the message over and over again before responding with a simple _'ok'._ He tried to imagine what Paris might want or need; did he have information, or was he worried about the sanctity of their little arrangement? Richard only hoped it wasn't about money again- Paris had already tried to squeeze another half a million out of him, and their arrangement had barely been in place a week.

Dick went about his day with Paris at the back of his mind, instead focusing on the array of designer stores he sampled along Gotham's high fashion street. Back in Bludhaven you'd be lucky to find a Starbucks, never mind high-end stores such as these. Dick spent an unholy amount of the mob's money on smart shirts and dark jeans, justifying his purchases with thoughts of how he would need such regalia to fit in with his new persona, and trying not to focus on the joy he found in making such outlandish purchases. Before heading back to his apartment, he stopped off for lunch at a pizza place and deciding to call Barbara. When she answered, she sounded irate, exhausted.

"Hello?"

"Hey Batgirl. You been fighting any crimes lately?"

Barbara sighed through the other end of the phone. "I've told you not to call me that any more."

Richard felt a sadness in his heart. He remembered Barbara as she was, lithe and sharp and with a natural ability, more skill for the vigilante game than he could have ever hoped to achieve. He pictured her now, immobile, her mind still running at the pace of the Batgirl but her body unable to compete with it.

"You're always Batgirl to me."

Barbara went quiet. "What do you want, Dick?" She put emphasis on _Dick,_ the way she always did when she was annoyed, to make an insult of his own name. "I'm really busy up here. Bruce has had me running files on this Riley case for days now, and I don't know what else he expects me to find because we've been over and over it-"

"Has he told you what happened?"

"...No. Guess you'll have to."

With a sigh, Dick told Barbara about his altercations with Bruce, of the worries he and Alfred shared. By the end of their conversation, Barbara had decided she would try to talk with Bruce about the Joker situation, try to force him out of his shell and get him back on the case.

"He's got way more reason to listen to me on the subject," Barbara said, her tone melancholy. "I was there when it happened with Jason. And obviously, I was there when he..."

Barbara went quiet. Neither party needed her to go into depth; both she and Dick were haunted by what the Joker had done to her. It had torn the two of them apart, and they had never been the same since.

"...Just don't do anything stupid, Dick."

"Me? Stupid? Never. I'm working tonight, meeting with one of my informants."

"Does Bruce know?"

"No. Like I told you, he's not interested."

"Yeah, well, like _I_ told you; don't do anything stupid."

"Yes, M'am. Catch you later, Oracle."

Barbara said her goodbyes and hung up the line.

Dick headed home, and spent the evening trying on his new wardrobe before changing into his gear and heading down to the parking lot on 52nd street which he and Paris had turned into their meeting place. He waited with his hood pulled up, drinking in the dark and tasting the cool night air. Far in the distance, he could hear the hum of Gotham's nightlife and make out the faint glow of neon lights drawing in Gotham's party scene like moths to a pulsing flame. It made him think back to that night he had spent with Harleen when he had followed her to the Iceberg Lounge an finally brought her that drink he'd been promising. Guilt came with the very thought of her face; he still didn't know all of the details, but it wasn't too far of a stretch to conclude that Penguin's underground club, back then unknown to Bruce and himself, had been instrumental in breaking the Joker out of Arkham. Richard remembered the sunny girl he had walked home that night, thought of the shy, blushing psychiatrist he had met when he had posed as a reporter.

He wondered what sort of picture she painted now. At the start of it all he had seen her in the papers, of course, and she was always smiling. But the papers never told the whole story, or even half of it. He hoped she was okay, but he didn't want her to be happy; not there, with him. He hoped she was miserable, because maybe then she'd come to her senses and give herself up. He hoped for a lot of things.

Richard checked his watch. Paris should be here by now; his tardiness didn't sit right with the vigilante. He wondered again over what Paris could want from him, what could be so urgent as to warrant an unscheduled meeting between the two.

 _Don't do anything stupid, Dick._ That's what Barbara had said to him. As time went on and Dick became more uncomfortable, he started to question whether he was putting too much faith in Franz; his betrayal of his uncle's seedy business operations showed that he wasn't someone to be trusted, and money could buy many things, but loyalty was not one of them. Deciding to go with his gut, Richard found footing on one of the parking lot's pillars and manoeuvred his way up the column, swinging himself up into the ramparts and finding footing atop one of the support beams.

He waited there for another ten minutes before there was any sign of life; the glum figure of Paris Francesco scurried into the parking lot, looking startled when he found that Nightwing was nowhere to be found. Dick crouched cautiously, watching as Paris pulled his cell phone and made a call; Dick hurried to silence his own cell, just managing to mute the tone as Franz' number flashed upon the screen. Paris looked around once the call had failed to go through, looking even more anxious than usual, and attempted to make a call again.

This time, though, Dick's phone remained unresponsive. He listened intently as Paris whispered into his phone, on the line with some unknown source.

"He isn't here, I've tried calling him... _no!_ I don't know! He's never been late before, maybe I should... I know, _I know..._ okay, I'll wait. Okay. _Bye."_

Paris hung up.

 _Son of a bitch, he's sold me out,_ Richard thought, watching as Paris continued to pace about uneasily. Dick tried to make sense of what was going on, and began looking for his exit; he could slip away unseen through the beams and drop down out of sight, with no reason for Franz or whoever was on the other line to know he'd ever turned up in the first place. He would much prefer to simply drop from above and teach Franz a lesson where he stood, but if his unknown associates were nearby hidden out of sight, Dick could end up getting in a hell of a lot more trouble than the likes of Paris Francesco were worth. Very slowly, he began to move across the beams, being as cautious as he could to remain silent in the face of danger. It was no easy task, as every other beam was too old and unstable to offer a decent amount of support, and Dick was very aware that a bad fall from this height could leave him with worse than a few broken bones. Richard crept ever so slowly across the parking lot.

He paused when he heard Franz' phone ring. He was too far to hear the conversation, but not far enough to be clear of the group of men who sauntered their way into the car park in that very minute. Dick kept very still as they passed by, heard Franz shouting to them from across the lot. When he realised that he recognised the leader of the group, Richard was filled with equal parts dread and excitement. When he saw who was heading up the back of the gang, he could hardly believe his luck, or perhaps severe lack of it.

Johnny Frost strode across the lot with sharp steps, leading the men towards Franz as his boss followed after them. Richard watched the Clown, suddenly paralyzed, though with intrigue rather than fear; there was something ethereal about the Joker, there was no denying that. He moved in a very fluid yet controlled manner, as though every step were a performance. Dick watched the blood drain from Paris' face as the Joker pushed his way through his men and stood before the young man, who scrambled quickly away from him, full of apologies and excuses. Johnny Frost and another of the men got a hold on the boy and brought him before their boss, his panic audible.

"Please, Mr. Joker, I didn't know he wouldn't show!"

"Mr. Joker?!" the Clown said, his inflexion almost as iconic as his outlandish appearance. "Well, that sounds utterly _ridiculous."_

"...Please, Sir, I did everything I could-"

Paris gave a pained groan as Joker jabbed him in the side with his boot, tears welling in his eyes. The clown brushed his hair back and inquired,

"Johnny, do we still have that flamethrower in the trunk?"

Dick swore beneath his breath. If he moved now, left his traitorous informant to the Clown and his madness, he could drop out of sight and be out of the parking lot in a heartbeat. Was he really about to risk his own safety for the man who'd sold him out?

He knew the answer already; it was the answer which years of living with Bruce had ingrained in him, the difference, he knew, between us and them. _You are an idiot,_ he told himself, then called himself a host of far more foul names, as he began to creep his way closer to the altercation, hating himself every swing of the way.

Frost was on his way back with the flamethrower as the vigilante poised himself above the most threatening-looking of Joker's horde, a Nephalim of a man with a thick head of dark hair wearing a suit which was absurdly tight across his bulging chest. As Paris wept for mercy, Dick carefully unzipped his backpack and retrieved his batons then took the mask from his inner pocket to concealed his identity, mapping out his next move in his head and hoping to God that Joker would have the sense not to turn the flamethrower he was holding on his own men. He pulled up his hood and waited, glad that he'd decided to don his suit beneath his clothes.

"Please, sir, please," Paris gagged, fighting against the two men who were holding him down, both of whom looked rather concerned as to how the Clown planned on using the volatile weapon on the young man without the two of them becoming victims themselves. "He's never not turned up before, I can try again tomorrow-"

"Oh, shut up, you big girl's blouse. I don't deal in second chances- Johnny, is that thing ready yet? Let's cook ourselves a chicken!"

Here goes nothing, Dick thought, and leapt from the ramparts in a darting motion, twisting his legs around the shoulders of the huge henchman and driving both batons into the back of the man's neck. His appearance sent a ripple of panic through the surrounding men, who began to draw their weapons- at the sight of the figure's mask, realising quickly who he was, Joker laughed aloud. He span from his position and roared,

"Don't shoot him! I want him alive, and kicking, do you hear me?! _A-l-i-v-_ oh, you know the rest!"

A miraculous fight ensued; Joker stood back yelling out words of discouragement and enjoying the show, laughing aloud as the vigilante took out man after man with his batons and gymnastic prowess, defeating men twice his size with remarkable ease. Only when Frost managed to disarm the hero with a fiercely unfair move did the tables begin to turn, and within minutes the young vigilante was down on the ground, fists and feet pounding him as he struggled to get to his feet. It was no use, and soon Dick found that he was unable to move at all.

The beating stopped quite suddenly and was replaced instead with the sound of the Clown's curdling laughter. Dick struggled to keep his eyes open as the Clown's purple shoes neared him and the laughter subsided.

"See, Frosty?" said the owner of the feet. "I told you that'd bring the maggot out of the woodwork. That's the problem with these hero types, they just can't resist a damsel in distress."

The clown swiftly kicked Richard in the side, and he quickly discovered why Paris had reacted so extremely; the Clown's shoes were steel-capped, the force of the kick almost unbearable. Dick kept silent until the third kick, when he yelped in agony as the shoe caught him beneath the ribs. On and on the kicks flew, until Dick began to wave out of consciousness, numb with pain.

"Hush little bat-freak, don't say a word," the clown sang breathily as he continued his assault, "Joker's gonna take on the whole damn world..."


	5. Chapter Five: Warm Ghosts

**Chapter Five:**

 **Warm Ghosts**

Barbara rasped her fingers across the desk in frustration. She had been trying to get through to Bruce all afternoon on his 'work' number with no luck. She decided he must be involved in some sort of Wayne Industries meeting or event, and was debating whether or not to try him on the manor's landline.

She was not permitted to contact him as Bruce Wayne unless it was an emergency, as in their day-to-day lives, the two were supposed to be strangers. She wasn't quite sure if her inquiry warranted an emergency, but she was stumped for what else to do, so took a deep breath and resigned to calling the Manor's landline. Alfred answered in his usual prim tone after a dozen rings.

"Hello, you have reached the Wayne residence. How might I help you?"

"Hi, Al. It's Babs."

"Barbara? Oh my dear, how lovely to hear from you. Pardon me for my tardiness, but crossing from the kitchen to the foyer in a house of this size is no easy task for a man of my age."

"How are things? Is he... any better?"

"Yes, well, I'm trying to keep up appearances. He's in bed again. I've had to make excuses with the board, cancel meetings. He just won't... move."

Barbara felt a little sick. "He hasn't been like this since he put the Clown away."

"Since Jason," Alfred agreed. There was a long moment of silence before Barbara spoke again.

"I can't get in touch with Dick," she said, which was the real reason for her call.

"Well, that's no big surprise. Young master Dick is not known for his reliability."

"This is different," Barbara said, confessing her fears. "Last time I spoke with him he said he was going on some sort of a mission, and I haven't been able to reach him since. I'm... I'm worried about him, Alfred."

The Butler cleared his throat. His tone turned to one of comfort. "Richard is perfectly capable of looking after himself... but I understand your concerns. He is notably more reckless than the rest of the family." Alfred sighed. "You, my dear, were always the clever one."

"What can we do, Alfred?"

"I'll try to get in contact with him. If I can't get an answer... then I'll talk to Bruce. If he'll let me. I'll try to make him see some sense, but..." Alfred sighed again, a hopeless gesture. "I fear this time he may be out of our reach."

More silence. A heavier sigh.

"Let's hope that isn't true," Barbara said. "For all our sakes."

~oOo~

Harley pretended to still be asleep when she heard Joker enter the apartment complex. She dipped her head beneath the covers as he danced through the door of the penthouse, clattering through the kitchen for a moment before appearing in the bedroom with a tub of ice-cream, a bottle of liquid morphine and an oral syringe.

"You can't still be sleeping!" he said, his voice outrageous and filled with laughter. Harley opened her eyes with a murmur, feigning a slow stir.

"It's all that stuff," she said, gesturing to the medication. "It makes my head all fuzzy, Puddin'. I don't think I should be having as much as you're giving me-"

"Oh, hush now. Puddin' knows best." He gave an excitable giggle. Harley watched as his white hands unscrewed the lid on the oral solution.

"What's got you so smiley?" she asked, reaching out to stroke his wrist. It was then that she noticed the blood on the hem of his jacket.

"I've just had a positively _wonderful_ evening," Joker answered her, spooning a mouthful of the solution her way.

"How come?"

"Oh, never you mind. Open wide."

Harley did as she was told, swallowing back the bitter liquid regretfully. Joker helped her take the taste away with a spoonful of the ice-cream, which was minty-chocolate chip, Harley's favourite.

"This should to those nasty teeth of yours some good," Joker said, as though it were her teeth's's fault for her pain and not his own. He swallowed back some of the dessert himself, singing his approval with a delighted _'mmmm!'_

Harley giggled, wiping her mouth and pulling at the split in her lip as she did so, re-opening the tender wound. The bruises were healing up now, and the meds that Joker was pumping into her system morning noon and night kept her sleepy but free of oral pain, but that little reminder of what her love had done to her made her feel a sudden itching in her stomach, a discomfort at his presence which had danced between the two of them since he had attacked her. Harley allowed herself to drift as the morphine bled into her system in soft waves, until soon enough she could think of little more but sleep. She told Joker this, and he leaned closer to kiss her on the mouth, long and slow, biting gently at her cut lip before pulling away.

"Sleep well, my deluded darling."

Harley kissed him once again before lying back on the pillows and pulling the duvet up high, feeling content. She listened as Joker made his way back to the kitchen, and soon heard a rasping at the door before Frost's strained but familiar accent filled the room.

"How is she today?"

"Sleeping like an especially slovenly yet peculiarly seductive sloth. How about my new pet?"

"Everything's sorted. I doubt he'll be giving you any trouble tonight."

"Wonderful, my dear Jonathan. Say, can I call you _Jonathan?"_

"...It's just John, sir."

 _"'Just John?'"_ Joker took a sip from a glass of water, leaving a ring of red across the rim. "Dear, your parents must have been cripplingly _boring_ people. That might explain all of your..."

Joker looked Frost over, saw the typically unreadable expression on his henchman's face, allowing his sentence to trail off.

"...Charms. Anyway. I'd like you to have one of the boys keep an eye on him overnight. You know how slippery these vigilante types can be. Do it yourself, if you've got nothing planned."

"Yes, sir."

Joker rasped his fingers against the glass. He rubbed at his eyes, smearing black across the back of his pale hand.

"Good. And good luck, my loyal lackey; now if you'll excuse me, this clown needs to catch up on his beauty sleep. Exit, stage right."

Frost nodded, and left before Joker could even toss his glass into the sink. The clown ensured that the door was securely locked before drifting back to the bedroom, pausing in the bathroom to scrub the days grime from his pearly white teeth before peeling off his clothes and slipping into bed beside the woman he had worked so hard to make his own.

Harley lay beside him, trying to make sense of the things she had overheard, and wondering if she would be brave enough to do anything about them.

~oOo~

"This is _important,_ Master Wayne."

"Later, Alfred," Bruce insisted, pulling the cover up over his head.

"You said that yesterday," Alfred insisted, "you haven't left your bed in almost two days."

Bruce gave a groan in return. Frustrated by his insolence, Alfred simply came out with what he had to say, hoping it would be enough to shock Bruce into action.

"Richard is missing."

Bruce rubbed his eyes, beginning to sit up. "Richard?"

"Barbara called, worried sick. Dick went out on one of his _'missions'_ and hasn't been heard from since. I drove to his flat this afternoon and there's no sign of him."

Alfred sat beside him on the bed, lending his kind eyes to Bruce's pained ones.

"I know this is hard for you. You thought all of this was laid to rest, all of this pain. But the truth is, none of this will go away unless you face it. Hiding from the past, hiding from your reality, will not end your suffering. It will only add to it."

Bruce bowed his head.

"I went inside and it doesn't look like he's been home. I did a bit of snooping and found these..."

He passed over the file he had found amongst Dick's investigations.

"The name and address of his contact with the Falcone's. It might prove useful."

Bruce looked broken, but he was listening now. He faltered for words for a long time, trying to find words that would not come.

"I'm..." Bruce tried, his voice pained, uneven. "I'm just so _tired,_ Alfred."

"I know," the Butler said, bringing an arm around the man and letting his head rest against his own shoulder. "I know you are. We've already lost so much, Bruce... so many loved ones. More than either of us can bear. You've already lost one son. Don't let yourself loose another just because you are afraid."

When Bruce looked up, there were tears in his eyes, of exhaustion and something more. Resolve.

"what should I do, Alfred?"

Alfred smiled.

"What you always do, Master Bruce," the old man said, touching his ward's hand. "The right thing."

~oOo~

When Harley awoke, she found that she was once again alone. Almost a week had passed, and she was still confined to the apartment; almost all of the bruising was gone now and all of the pain, but she hadn't forgotten what the Joker had done to her, nor the fear of him which had resurfaced because of it. Some days when Joker would disappear early to oversee business he would leave her a note telling him when he might be back or perhaps a new joke he had thought of, scrawled down to make her smile, but today was not one of those days. All he had left was the morphine by her bedside; she did not take any anymore, not unless he forced her to. She was tired of being tired.

Harley tried the doorknob of the apartment, pouting when it wouldn't give. She was getting quite sick of Joker locking her in day in and day out; she hadn't seen a sniff of the outside world since that horrible night at Penguin's place. She rooted through the cupboards in the kitchen, hoping to find something satisfying for breakfast. Joker didn't really eat- she wasn't sure she'd ever seen him sit down long enough to eat a meal. He would instead pick at things, not really seeming to enjoy food. One day, when Harley had asked him about it, he had said that he _'didn't really have a taste for it'._ Harley had laughed- _how can you not have a taste for food?,_ she had asked- and he had answered that things had been different for him all around since his first trip to ACE Chemicals, and that the mouthfuls of waste he had ingested upon almost drowning had done some permanent damage to him, both inside and out. _"Frazzled taste-buds are the least of my worries,"_ he had joked.

Things were certainly not that way for Harley; she had by no means lost her appetite since making her transition. She had always loved food, and it was disappointing to see so little of it around; she had dropped yet more weight since running away with the Joker, and though she had initially been delighted with her slimmer figure, she was beginning to feel weak. She missed Sally's chocolates. She decided that she would petition Frost with a shopping list, and sat down at the dinner table to write one out.

Harley had only written _ganache, corn nuts_ and _soda pops_ down on her list before she was forced to admit to herself that she was doing nothing but searching for a distraction from her thoughts. Try as she might, she could not ignore the terrible caged bird feeling which had been festering inside of her for weeks. She wanted nothing more than to get out of the department, which seemed to grow smaller and smaller by the day. There were only so many cartoons a girl could watch before she started to lose her mind- or what was left of it.

Then there were the things she had been overhearing; _new pet, vigilante. Keep him quiet._ She had been too afraid to ask, but it was quite clear that the Joker had captured someone during his exploits around the city. Try as she might to ignore it, she couldn't help but think over it again and again. She had dreamed of Nightwing two rows in a night now.

 _Vigilante._ There weren't too many of those around Gotham city anymore; Joker had murdered that Robin kid, carried around with him years ago, and there had been no sign of the Batgirl since before that. Only the Batman and Nightwing were still on the scene, and if Joker had caught himself Batman, neither hell no high water would be able to stop the Clown from singing such a fact from the rooftops.

Harley told herself that it was illogical to assume that Nightwing was the one in Joker's clutches. There were thousands of people in Gotham; at least a handful of them had to be crazy enough to try and follow in the Bat's footsteps. It certainly wouldn't be the first time a civilian had put on a pair of tights and some hockey pads and got themselves into some serious trouble.

Still, the thought nagged. She wondered if, whoever they were, they might be right here, hidden away in the apartment block. The building was long-abandoned, unassuming and derelict to any passers-by. Harley found herself trying the door again, despite knowing it was locked. She was sick of locked doors and drawn curtains, sick of being in the dark about everything that was going on in the world outside that penthouse door. She went into the living area and retracted the blind to the wide window, looking down over Gotham and wondering where her Puddin' could be, what heinous scheme he was involving himself in now. She wondered how close Gotham was to war between the Maroni's and the Falcones, all orchestrated by her puppetmaster. Over in the night district she could see the low building that she knew to be Cobblepot's lounge. The building appeared to be having some work done, alive with workmen. Harley thought of Selina and Candy. She wished she had some way of contacting her friends, of letting them know that she was alright, of thanking them for looking after her that night. Candy was the type to worry, to fuss over the little things.

It reminded Harley of her mother.

A knot appeared in the young woman's stomach. She tried to look across the bay to the harbours of Bludhaven, but her hometown was nothing more than a blackened blur. Harley quickly pulled the blinds back into place and left the drawing room.

When Joker arrived home Harley was delighted for the company.

"Honey, I'm home!" he called in a clean-and-chipper accent as he walked through the door, taking long strides into the kitchen, where Harley was sat at the table sewing herself yet another new dress. "What's for dinner?"

" A whole lotta nothing," Harley answered in a sing-song voice, biting a loose thread in two and playing along. "I've written a list for Frosty, you gotta send him shopping. Rough day at the office, sweetie?"

"You can't imagine," he said, wrapping his arms around her middle and laying a kiss on the back of her neck. He moved through to the bedroom and quickly dropped the accent, picking last night's jacket from the floor. "Still, things are almost in place now. I'm going out again tonight. Apparently dear old Jeremiah Arkham wants to run something by me before he deploys the troops, so to speak."

"Yer leavin' me again?" Harley whined, wincing as she accidentally stabbed at her finger with the needle. "You're never around anymore. I'm starting to think you're getting bored of me." She was only half joking.

"How could anyone ever get bored of you?" Joker said with what Harley thought to be a truthful smile, and leant across the table to kiss her on the forehead.

"Let me come with you tonight," Harley implored, squeezing his hands. "Please, Puddin'. I swear I won't do anything stupid, not ever again. I'm goin' loopy staring at these four walls..." She quickly corrected herself. "...Loopier. Please. I wanna spend some time with you, doing something fun."

"If your idea of fun is business meetings and money management then somewhere along the line the two have us have suffered some serious miscommunication," he said, smiling, but she did not smile back.

"You can't keep me cooped up in here forever, Mr. J."

"Not forever," he promised, squeezing her hands again. She wasn't convinced.

"Maybe we could rob a bank, or... or..."

"Drown a litter of puppies?"

Harley frowned. Joker squeezed her cheek.

"See, my love? You don't have the stomach for it, not really. You still haven't killed anybody, you do realise that, don't you? Not counting Leeland and that old boss of yours-"

"That was an accident," Harley cut in. She still got a sinking feeling when she remembered hearing the reports that Quincy Sharp had died of his injuries.

"...Exactly. Don't worry, you'll have plenty of opportunities to toughen up soon enough. Speaking of which-" He pulled her from the chair and down into his lap- "I have a surprise for you."

"What kind of a surprise?"

"A big one. A birthday party! Or rather, a _re-_ birth party. It' been almost a year since we drowned that miserable old Doctor Quinzel, you know! As for the surprise, you won't get that until the party, but I just know it'll make you scream!"

Harley's interest peaked. She pouted regardless.

"Now come on, we've got a couple of hours before _J.F_ is coming to chauffeur me. What would you like to do, princess?"

Harley thought for a moment, abandoning her sewing.

For the rest of the night Harley sat between his long legs, one bent up beside her on the sofa and the other trailing on the floor beneath the edge of the blanket, watching old cartoons she remembered from when she was little on the jumpy old TV. The particular one Harley had chosen was about, of all things, a sentient toaster, and Joker was not overly impressed.

"This is the drivel you used to watch as a kid?" he asked, twisting one of her pigtails around his finger as he watched the show unfold.

"It's a classic," Harley defended, popping her bubble gum and wishing there was something else in the penthouse worth eating.

Joker shrugged. "Well, if you say so. Back in my day we were happy with _Loony Tunes."_

Harley smiled sadly. She wondered if he really remembered such a thing, or if he just supposed that he would.

On screen, a little boy in big round glasses was burning his toast in the titular toaster. Thick black tendrils of blackened air reached into the room as the smoke turned to fire and dragged him away, and a huge demented-looking clown rose from the climbing flames, leering down at the cowering creature with a nasty grimace. In a sinister voice it whispered,

 _"Run."_

"Now that's more like it," Joker mused, a low laugh in his throat.

Harley rested her head back against his shoulder, savouring the moment, the cheerful rumbling in his chest.

~oOo~

Paris Franz had been rather enjoying his time on the run. After narrowly escaping the Joker's clutches in the chaos when he had allowed Nightwing to be captured, he had made it his mission to get as far away from Gotham as possible. Nestled up with his auntie's family in Star City, Paris had been indulging in the nightlife and spending his days enjoying his aunt's hospitality. Maybe one day, when things in Gotham were quieter, he'd return to the city; but even without the fear of the Joker hanging over his head, even a fool like Paris could see that things between the Maroni's and the Falcone's were about to turn very sour. He was glad to be far away from Gotham and not just another soldier in their war.

Returning home from Star City's most lively nightclub, Paris struggled to keep one foot in front of the other; he had drunk far too much sangria and was quite ready just to curl up on the street corner and hope he woke up in the morning with his wallet and dignity still intact. The woosh of something passing by his ear caused him to turn around; when he turned back, a figure was stood in the darkness in front of him, bright red suit shimmering in the dark, a yellow lightning bolt emblazoned across his chest. He folded his arms across the motif and smiled.

"Paris Francesco, isn't it?" The plucky figure asked. The drunk man was stunned. "Or Franz, if you prefer. My friend would like to speak with you. He's come a long way, so I'm sure you'll be willing to oblige him."

Paris turned around to see what the costumed young man was gesturing at; as he looked a shadow atop the nearest street lamp swooped down, and there in the darkness, almost twice Paris' height, stood the Batman, the red eyes in the frightening mask glowing down at him. It had taken almost a week and reluctantly asking for Flash's help to find Franz' location, and the Bat wasn't about to leave without the information he wanted.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Paris slurred, wondering if he were so drunk he could be imagining things. The Bat reached out with a large hand and grabbed the young man by the throat, and just as the Flash had imagined, Paris Franz was more than willing to cooperate.


	6. Chapter Six: Old Friends

**Chapter Six:**

 **Old Friends**

It was never _Him_ in her dreams. The smile was there, and the laughter, and sometimes the rest of him, too, but when she was sleeping, Harley could never quite put her finger on who the dazzling man guiding her dreams was.

Tonight was the same as many other nights; it was a dream she'd had a thousand times over, and remembered a handful of. She was pushing through the carnival's tents, humming to herself as she searched for the exit. It was dark now, and all the other guests had gone home; she needed to find her way out before they locked the gates.

"Lost, are we, my lovely?" said a voice; Harley turned to find one of the fair people was watching her from the doorway of his tent, shuffling a pack of cards in hand. Were she awake, she would be able to recognise him; in her sleep, he alluded her.

"A little," Harley admitted, looking around once again. "Could you show me the way out?"

"Leaving so soon?" the traveller frowned, beckoning her closer. "Phooey. Come on, there's still plenty of fun to be had. Pick a card, any card."

"Nah, I should go-"

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the tent, which was dimly lit with an assortment of coloured candles, their flames burning all sorts of colours as if by magic.

"Sit!" the showman insisted, pushing Harley into a seat and sitting down opposite her. Between them was a narrow wooden table.

"Pick a card," he insisted again, with a lively smile. Harley did so. She smiled when she turned it dorsal side up to find that she had drawn the Queen of Diamonds.

"So you're a magician?"

"Of sorts," he smiled wryly, shuffling the cards again. "And what, pray tell, are you supposed to be?"

The girl wasn't sure how to answer that. "Uh... I'm Harley."

"Harley," he sang, "what a beautiful name!" He said it _Harle-e-_ e-y _,_ as though he were jumping across the letters. "Tell me, Harley, is this your card?"

The man held out to her the Sixth of Clubs. Harley tilted her head, surprised at his failure.

"No," she said brusquely, blowing hair out of her face. "Some magic show."

She stood to leave the tent, and as she did the young performer rose with her, blocking her way with raised hands.

"Wait wait _wait!"_ he insisted, then gave a short, forgiving laugh. "Sorry, I'm a little out of practice. I'm without an assistant, after all. Come on, Ha-ha _-_ harley _,_ one more try."

Harley pouted at him before relenting. "Ah, alright," she said, taking her seat again.

"Excellent," he smiled, sitting back down and shuffling his cards uneasily, chewing at his bottom lip as he went. Harley tried to place his face.

"Don't I know you?"

"I don't know," the young man said, but when he spoke it was with another's voice. "Do you?"

Harley looked again at him, surprised by the change in his tone. When she did, she almost jumped out of her seat. Were it not for his sudden grasp on her wrists, she would have fled.

No, not his. _Hers._ When she looked at the creature which had only moments ago been the young man, she saw instead that it was her own face that stared back at her; not the face she knew now, but that of Harleen Quinzel, young, naive Harleen Quinzel, sat with a scowl on her face and her hair tied back, a name badge around her neck and bruising there, too. It was like looking into a fun-house mirror, the reflection distorted, wrong. Harley tried to pull way, but her doppelganger would not let go.

A sudden darkness descended in the tent. The lights flickered rapidly for a few seconds before settling, and when they did Harley found that Harleen was gone, and Jeremiah sat in her place, wearing that funny black mask he had taken to.

"Jerry?" Harley said, her voice high with fright. "What's going on?"

Jeremiah laughed. He removed the mask with one hand, and she realised than that it was not Jerry after all, but her father.

"Dad," Harley said, and squeezed tight at the hand she still held. "Dad, I-"

Again the lights whirred, a strong howling wind stirring up from nowhere like a cyclone in the small tent, and in the chaotic darkness the image flickered- Joan Leeland, Alyce Sinner, Quincy Sharp with his neck broken, Lyle Bolton, the lithe green glow of Pamela Isley, a flash of her mother and a memory of the Bat, with his glowing red eyes. Harley brought her hands up to her ears and begged for it to stop, her eyes squeezed tight.

"Harley," a voice said, softer than all the others, as though it were beckoning her. The whirring had stopped now, and the lights had settled once more. "Harley."

The girl opened her eyes and looked at the man. He stared back at her, and his eyes were kind, his touch gentle.

"Hey, trouble."

Harley's heart calmed within her chest.

"Jack," she said, washed with relief. He was in his normal clothes, not that rubbery vigilante get-up. There was something comforting about his presence; he's always made her feel safe, even when she knew she was far from the open arms of safety.

"Might be," he said, that smile still on his face. "Can't tell you, remember?"

"Vigilante stuff," she recited, nodding as she settled into the calm. "What was all of that...?"

She stopped as she looked at him.

"You're... you're bleeding."

Nightwing touched his forehead. When he drew his hand away it was drowning in red, and a sheet of blood kept running, washing down his face in a sudden waterfall. He looked at Harley in confusion and opened his mouth to speak, before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell quickly from the chair.

"Nightwing?!" Harley cried, but found that she could not move from her chair to go to him. After a few moments she heard a grunting, and it seemed to her that he was okay.

"Ugh... I'm okay," confirmed the voice, but it was not Nightwing's. A plaster-white hand hooked itself onto the table, and used its grip to pull its owner back into the seat. Harley knew that hand.

Joker brushed back his hair with a long, exhausted sigh, then turned to his muse with a grin.

"I'm a-okay."

"Puddin'!" Harley said, finding him just out of reach. "What's happening?"

"You're at the magic show, of course," he said, and began to shuffle the magician's cards. He took one from the top of the pile, handing it out to Harley with his eyes pinched closed to show that he was not cheating.

"Is this your card?"

Harley stared at the ace of spades, a new frown painting her features.

"No, it isn't-"

Click.

"Are you _sure?"_

Harley looked up to find a revolver pointed in her face. Joker beamed.

 _"Ta-da!"_

~oOo~

Harley woke up before the bang. She found herself alone, curled up on the sofa, her Puddin' nowhere to be found and the television blasting loudly in the other room. She dragged herself out of the bedroom, taking a blanket with her, to find Roger Rabbit was running wild around the floor of an ACME warehouse, causing havoc for all those around him. She turned off the television and sighed aloud. The room was cold and dark, the dull hum of the fridge her only companion. Harley pulled the blanket up around her shoulders and sighed aloud.

She had lost track of how long she had been locked up in this apartment; it could only be a couple of weeks, she supposed, but it felt like years. She had no company, other than brief visits from Joker when he stepped back from arranging his grand schemes to pay her some mind. She saw Frosty sometimes, but he was hardly what she'd call good company. Upon hearing her complaints, Joker had offered to bring Gagsworthy in to essentially babysit her while he was out; Harley could think of nothing worse.

In the kitchen, she found that Frost had finally got around to picking her up some of the essentials she'd requested; two bags of sweet n' salty popcorn, a crate of grape soda, few other oddities and there at the bottom of the bag, the box of bobby pins she had requested. Her heart skipped a beat as she slipped one from the box, her eyes moving to the front door.

"Well, I'm gonna lose my freakin' mind if I don't find something to do," she muttered aloud to herself, trying to shake the sickly feeling of the dream which was already fading. She'd requested the pins on a whim, reasoning that people did it all the time on TV.

She knelt beside the door and bent the hairpin into an _'L'_ shape, chewing away the rubber grips and jabbing the flat end into the lock, twisting and turning and waiting for something to happen. She worked at the lock until her fingers were sore, the metal of the pin pressing pale lines into her skin. She was about to give in when there was a shuddering click, and the door loosened from the latch. Harley gave a whoop of triumph, pocketing the out-of-shape pin and breathing in the air from the corridor as though it were fresh from the seashore.

There had been a couple of times where she'd turned the apartment upside down in search of a spare set of keys; she didn't want to run away, promised herself she'd stay inside the apartment, but she was just so bored of those four walls. Exploring the abandoned complex sounded like fun, and with Joker only ever coming home late into the night, she could easily make sure she was back before he even knew she'd left her prison.

She hovered on the threshold for a moment before stepping out into the corridor, a tingling in her fingers as she left the door on the latch so she could get back in without another venture into the dull world of lock-picking. She took a bottle of the soda with her on her travels, eyeing the corridor as though she expected her lover to burst out from behind a door at any moment. Joker wouldn't like her doing this, that much she knew. Harley decided that she would be an hour, tops... or maybe too.

For the first time since she had moved into the building, Harley took the stairs rather than the elevator. She had never so much as seen any of the floors other than their own and the indoor parking lot down below, and found the layout much the same on the other floors as she slid her way down the banisters; four apartments on each, with dull yellowing wallpaper and a musky smell which worsened as she neared the bottom of the complex. Every door was locked, and Harley didn't much feel like picking any more locks today, so she bypassed the apartments in favour of finding something more fun.

The ground level floor was the only one of interest. The place was a state, its windows boarded and its rooms filthy; there were scruffy old blankets on the floors draped in amongst empty packets of food and needles, needles, needles... it looked as though the squatters Frost had evicted had been making real use of the place as a down-and-out drug den. Harley made her way to the reception area, which had escaped the occupation of Gotham's indigents. She took a place behind the desk, flicking through the former receptionist's left-over belongings; an old notebook filled with numbers for taxi and take-out services, along with hundreds of to-do-lists and reminders to _'TEXT MOLLY,'_ whoever Molly was.

The sounds of dogs barking immediately sent Harley's heart into a frenzy. She clutched at herself, looking about for the source; beyond the hotel's reception there was a closed door with frosted glass panelling, and she could just make out the outlines of the beast's beyond, chained up, it seemed, across the other side of the room. Very carefully she opened the door, to find herself looking out on an abandoned diner style restaurant which must have belonged to the hotel.

The two dogs were going wild. Chained either side of the basement doors, they barked ferociously in Harley's direction, spittle flying everywhere, trying their very best to get at her. Chained as they were they had no chance, but the sight and sound alone was enough to scare Harley. She sipped at her soda to help calm her nerves as she watched the two frenzied animals. They were a pair of huge Rottweilers, thick with muscle, fearful to look upon but quite beautiful in their way. As the barking raged on, Harley covered her ears; the sound was piercing. She looked about and found that there was a whistle left on one of the diner tables. She picked it up, gave it a series of short, sharp blasts, and though she heard no sound coming from the device, both dogs stopped their barking immediately.

"There now, that's better," Harley said softly, keeping a hold of the whistle. She stood at a safe distance from the dogs, and saw that behind them on the wall hung a set of leather leads and two huge muzzles. "Atta, boys... or girls."

One of the dogs gave a low growl. Harley blew the whistle again, and the beast quickly stopped. Harley was glad of their obedience but hated to think what the animals had come to expect as a result of the whistle tone in order to keep them so submissive.

She stood still and watched the pair for quite some time, wondering what they could be guarding. Very, very slowly she began to approach, avoiding eye contact, and held her hand palm-upwards to the dog who had not growled at her. She held her breath as the dog sniffed at her palm and carefully brought her hand up to stroke its head. Perhaps surprised at the affection, the dog was very still, but let her stroke its head all the same.

Perhaps it was watching its sibling interacting with the young woman which caused the other dog to relax and take an interest in her. Soon enough, both dogs were calm, sniffing at Harley curiously and accepting her affections. The more aggressive of the two even laid down at her side and allowed her to rub his ears. In such a state, Harley could read the nametags about their necks; _Bud and Lou._

"Abbott and Costello," she laughed to herself as she sipped her soda, knowing that Joker must have had a hand in naming them. That only made her more curious to know what was behind that door.

Having gained the dogs' trust, Harley carefully stood and pulled the muzzles down from their hooks. Very carefully, she secured them over both dogs' faces; they put up little resistance. With the two secured, she opened up the basement door.

To her surprise, a muffled moan carried itself up the dark steps.

Both dogs growled a little. Harley stroked both of their heads to settle them.

Her heart skipped several beats. She felt around on the dark wall, her fingers landing on a pull cord. A dim yellow light filled the abyss as she pulled down on the string, and she could see down in the tomb, in amongst the empty shelving units of the pantry, there was a figure bound to a chair.

The person looked to be male, slumped in the seat with a black sack pulled down over his face. Though her first instincts told her to get out of here, head back upstairs to the apartment and pretend to have seen nothing, Harley could not stop her feet from advancing down the echoing staircase. She clutched to her bottle of soda, tense all over, watching the slumped figure in the gloom.

The captive gave another soft murmur. He wore dark jeans and a black sweatshirt, which Harley could see as she got closer was soaked through with dried blood.

She looked back over her shoulder, up into the natural light. It wasn't even midday; Joker wouldn't be home for a good few hours. Still, her Puddin' would kill her if he knew she was meddling. The dogs were watching her from the doorway.

"Curiosity killed the cat," she said to the pair of them, and found herself reaching for the bag with feline caution, taking the sack by the hem and lifting it gently from the captive's head. As the material drifted from his face, she found herself looking straight into the eyes of a person whose name she had never learned, but whose face was more than familiar to her. He was still wearing the mask.

Harley turned to leave almost upon instinct, grabbing the bannister and using it to pull her way up the first of the steps. Ase went, the man cried out to her, two muffled syllables from beneath the gag which she knew to be her name.

Harley paused mid-flight. She bowed her head and looked down at her hands, squeezing against the tightness in her chest. With an uncertain sigh she turned back to her former hero, took slow steps towards him, and carefully untied the gag from his face. They looked at each other for a long time before she finally pulled it away.

"What the hell are you doin' down here, Jack? Still lookin' for a scoop?"

Nightwing gritted his teeth as the fabric was drawn from between his lips.

"Hey Harley," he said with a bloody grin. "Long time no see."

Harley folded her arms across her chest. "Yeah, well not long enough. Comfy, cowboy?"

"Hardly."

 _"Good."_

"Hey, don't be like that. You're the one who did me wrong, remember. Has he sent you down to finish the job?"

"I... I didn't know you were here."

"Then I'll take a bet he doesn't know you're here, either."

"No... no, he doesn't. Why you still wearin' that dumb ass mask?" she asked suddenly, already on the defensive.

"Ask your boyfriend, he's the one who insisted his goons leave it on when he ambushed me and had me dragged down here. Pretty kinky if you ask me, but whatever. He always like that?"

Harley squirmed. Dick chuckled through bloody gums.

"Just a joke. Going by your recent life choices I'd have figured you liked those. What are _you_ doing down here? From what your _Puddin'_ has been telling me, I can't imagine he likes you sneaking around the place."

"Ain't none of your business what I'm doing anywhere, _Night-shite."_

Richard frowned at her. "Night-shite? _Really?"_

Harley smiled to herself. "M-hm, really. I've gotta take that thing off your face, I can't take seriously with that stupid thing on."

Dick pulled back a little as she reached out to him, looked her dead in the eyes. "Are you going to take yours off, too?"

Harley ignored the comment and put her soda down on the floor so that she could untie the mask behind his head; when it came away in her hands, she dropped it quickly to the floor upon realising that it was soaked through inside.

"Hey, careful with that!" Dick cried as the mask landed at his feet.

"Euch! It's all gross and sweaty!"

"Imagine how the rest of me feels... I've got the rest of my gear on underneath. I've been down here for a week in this stuff. That's a whole lot of rubber and a whole lack of breathing room. Your demented boyfriend took my batons. He's threatened to kill me with them twice, and set me on fire... ooh, three times, I think? Pyromania is one of the signs of sociopathy, you know."

"That and bed-wetting," Harley added. "But hey, you're the only one with reason to piss your pants."

"Don't do that," Richard said, and his eyes were sad beneath their usual sparkle. "Don't try and talk like him. That isn't you."

"You don't know me, bird brain," Harley said. "Not anymore."

Dick slumped. "Maybe you're right. The girl I knew would never have dropped one of her friends from a moving vehicle in the middle of a busy highway."

"Oh, so we were friends now?"

"I like to think so," Richard answered, surprised by her response. "I looked out for you, didn't I? Saved you more than once. Took you out for that drink. We had fun together."

"You were a _roadblock,"_ Harley interrupted, her voice bitter. "A babysitter at best, sent by the Bat to monitor me and make sure I didn't do anything crazy."

"In which case I failed," Dick said, and at first he meant it as a joke, but within moments the truth of that statement hit him. "I did fail you, Harleen. I tried to save you."

"I hate that name," Harley whispered, turning away from him.

"You never used to," Richard remembered. "You were brilliant back then. Smart, but gentle, too. You were shy, quiet... sweet."

 _"Sweet,"_ she mimicked, saying the word as though it tasted sour. "I'm still sweet! Sweeter, in fact. _Con-fi-dent,_ just like you always were. Only difference is now I ain't got _'DOORMAT'_ printed across my forehead in capital letters. Don't spend my days walkin' on eggshells around everyone no more, either."

"Not everybody," Nightwing agreed, wiping his nose against his shoulder as the bleeding started again. "Just him."

Harley looked away. Dick followed her gaze.

"That's a fair few bruises you've got there. Not the glamorous lifestyle you expected, huh?"

Harley bowed her head a little. "Yeah, well the world ain't all cupcakes and roses."

"You don't need to tell me that," Nightwing mused, "I'm the one tied up in a basement. Say, what's with the accent? ...I mean, you're a Blud, but you've never been _that_ Blud."

Harley kept her head lowered, staring at the tips of her bare feet, cold on the concrete. "Mr. J likes it."

There was a long period where neither party spoke, the wind whistling quietly through the pantry. Eventually Richard broke the silence, his voice a little thick.

"You have to help me, Harley. You have to get me out of here."

Harley turned back to him. Her mouth opened, but she did not speak.

"I don't... I _can't..."_

"Listen to me," Dick said, his voice stern and clear. "We were friends, the two of us. That has to mean something... you know he's going to kill me."

Harley turned away. "I... I have to go."

He cried, _"Harley, don't!",_ but the young woman was already running up the stairs away from him. Playing his last card, Richard called,

"I went to visit your parents."

Harley stopped for a moment mid-flight.

"Shut up," she said, her voice shaking.

"Your mom misses you."

Harley felt her throat tighten. "Did you really go and see them?"

Dick's eyes softened, and he nodded. "Your mom makes a great apple pie."

Harley smiled slightly. "Is... is she okay?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

Harley frowned at him. "That was a little low, Jack Ryder."

"Yeah well, I figure you're fair game for a few harsh realities... your mom is a wreck. I tried to comfort them both, cleared up a few of the lies they'd read in the press. Your mom feels as though it's somehow her fault, for not seeing the signs. Your dad just... cried."

Harley tried to stem the flow of tears which threatened to dance across her downcast eyes.

"They want you home, Harley," Richard said softly. "They want you to go home."

"Even if..." Harley tried, and lost her train of thought for a moment. "Even if I wanted to go back, I... I couldn't just walk away. Joker would kill me, and them, too."

"Sounds to me like part of you has given leaving him plenty of thought already."

"Don't put words in my mouth," Harley spat, though there was a truth to his words which scared her. "I love him. I love being free."

"Free?" Dick mocked, smacking his burnt tongue against his palate. "You said yourself, he's not even letting you outside. That's not freedom, Harley."

"I wouldn't expect a goody-goody like you to understand," Harley said, "He makes me feel like _me."_

"You were already you. He's twisted you into something you're not-"

"Oh, don't act like you really liked me before. Harleen Quinzel... _pshh._ I was a sap, a doormat, a... a..."

" A nice girl. I liked you, Harley," Dick said, with a small, sad smile. "Everyone did. Of course I liked you-"

"-What good is _'nice',_ huh?!" She said over him, "being nice has never got no one nowhere. And you never liked me. You only asked for my number so's you could spy on me. You... you made me feel like such an _idiot,"_ Harley confessed, for the first time, even to herself. She felt a stab in her chest at the memory. That was Harleen taking over her, with her insecurities and her constant over-thinking. "I thought... ah, forget it. You wouldn't understand. You ever been in love, night-light?"

Dick pictured the girl he had once known, swinging between rooftops in a leather suit, her cinnamon hair rippling like flames in the night air. He remembered her lounging about the manor, her hair tied into a messy pineapple atop her head, earphones trailing down her front and a pair of thick reading glasses perched on the end of her nose as she flicked through a book, one foot tapping to some silent tune.

 _"What?" Barbara had said, pausing to look up at him, one eyebrow raised. Richard had smiled a little, drinking her in, and had thought a thousand things he could_ say, _but had said very little at all._

 _"Nothing," he'd quipped with a smile, and turned his_ attention _back to picking at his nails._

 _She'd smiled. "Whatever,_ Dick," _she'd said, turning his own name into an insult, and she'd laughed, warm and clear as a bell._

Richard looked at Harley and shrugged. "Yeah. Hurts, doesn't it?"

The ghost of Harleen Quinzel looked away.

"I want to help you," she said, and she was crying now. For the first time in a long time, Dick felt like he was talking to the real her. "I promise, I do. But I can't. I'm... I'm sorry."

"You're scared of him."

For the first time, she allowed herself to admit it. She found suddenly that she wanted to tell him everything that had happened since that day on the highway, tell him of every wounding word and every painful touch, but instead she just nodded and apologised again. He nodded as though he understood, as though he could forgive her. Somehow, that made things worse.

She turned to the steps, and began to climb them, feeling the weight of it all pressing down upon her.

"What is he gonna do to you?" She asked finally. Dick didn't know the answer.

"He says there's a special event that he's saving me for," Dick said, sounded exhausted by it all. "A party at the iceberg, apparently. For you, so I've gathered. I imagine it will all be over after that."

Harley took a moment to process that.

"Maybe Batman will save you," she said, and her tone wasn't mocking, but hopeful.

"Maybe," Dick said. "Hey, if you're gonna leave me down here you should at least bag me back up again. If they find me like this they'll know something's up."

"Oh," Harley expressed, her voice quiet. He was still looking out for her, even now. It made her feel terrible. She tip-toed back down the steps and picked up the mask from near the vigilante's feet.

"I forget things sometimes," the girl said softly. Richard didn't break eye contact as she fastened the mask back around his face.

"Don't forget me," he said, and opened his mouth so that she could affix the gag once more. Harley did so, avoiding his gaze, until at last she pulled the dark bag down over his face, catching a last glimmer of those blue eyes.

As Harley closed the door, she wondered if she had ever felt so terrible in all of her life. At the top of the stairs the dogs were waiting for her, brown eyes staring at her inquisitively over their caged mouths. Without too much hesitation, she found herself unhooking their leads from the wall and unchaining them, pocketing the dog whistle and leading the pair of them to the door.

"Come on, babies," she said, resolve in her heart. "We're going out."


	7. Chapter Seven: Fair Game

**Chapter Seven:**

 **Fair Game**

"Anything else?" the petrified cashier asked, his eyes on the two snarling dogs as they sat either side of the bright young girl.

"Nah, I'm good," Harley said, swiping up the packet of bubble gum and pushing a pice behind her teeth. She dropped a fifty dollar note on the desk of the newsagent's booth and flashed the cashier a smile. "Keep the change, kiddo."

"Gee, thanks!" the young boy squeaked, brightening up instantly. Harley adjusted her sunglasses and sashayed onwards down the busy high street, keeping the two huge dogs in check. The crowds were quick to part at her approach, and paid more attention to the two beasts than to the girl handling them, which was just as well because Harley was, after all, a wanted criminal, though her sunhat and oversized glasses would make it difficult for anyone to recognise her unless they were really looking out for her.

It had taken her and the pooches a while to find their way out of the apartment building through the underground car lot, but now that she was out in the sunshine Harley felt a thousand times better. Bud and Lou seemed to appreciate it, too; she stopped off to buy them a treat of pigs ears from the butchers which they devoured hungrily, then grabbed a tennis ball from a sports store on the strip and let the pair of them off the lead in a quiet park of the iron sisters' park for a while, letting them burn off some of that rampant energy. They seemed terribly content afterwards, and the experience solidified her as their new best friend. Bud had almost torn apart a yappy little dog who had come barking his way, but with a sharp set of blasts on the whistle both dogs had come instantly to heed, which Harley was very thankful for. After that she had muzzled the two of them again and they had set off, continuing their journey.

Harley knew exactly where she was going, though she tried not to worry over it as they got closer to their destination. She found a taxi company which would allow her to bring the two dogs along with her in the car and set course for Bludhaven. As they crossed the Gotham river, Harley allowed herself to dwell on everything. Her mind kept going back to the idea of the big party Joker had promised her for her one year anniversary. Could it really have been only a year since she ran away with the clown? She was someone new entirely now. Sometimes she scarcely recognised herself when she looked in the mirror. He'd promised her a big surprise; reason dictated that Nightwing was intended to be it. She thought of the things Nightwing has said, and the things she had felt; it pained her to think of her friend (yes, she knew, he truly had been her friend back then) coming to a bitter end. She played out many ideas of what she might do, but none of them lead to a resolution where both she and Nightwing would live to tell the tale.

"Here we are, sweets," the cabbie said as they pulled up onto the quiet little street, "that'll be twenty-five dollars, please."

As she had done with the cashier earlier, she slipped him a $50. It was no skin off her back; all of it was stolen, anyway.

Harley coaxed the hounds out of the back of the van and into the heavy downpour which had begun on their way over from Gotham. The two dogs panted in the rain, and Harley wondered when the last time they'd been outside was. She lead them down the street and to the little semi-detached house coated in a washy layer of textured masonry paint, a sign of just how old it was. The three of them stood opposite the house, staring into the well-lit house within. The moment Harley laid eyes on her parents through the glass, there together on the sofa in the lounge watching television, she stopped noticing the heavy rain.

She would not even speak of her parents to Joker. He knew they existed, but she had seen no reason to remind him of the fact. Her secret fears were of her own imagination, it was true; she imagined that, if she showed any interest in rekindling a relationship with the people who had raised her, the pair who she loved so dearly, Joker's insatiable jealousy would get the best of him and her parents would meet some kind of accident... or would he even bother trying to hide what he had done, would he go so far as to kill them in front of her? To make her be the one to do the deed? She would put nothing past the man. He was capable of anything, as she'd well learned over the years. Before that had excited her. Now it only made her feel sick.

They were cuddled up together, their lips moving softly as they joked about something happening on the television, teased each other with a peck on the cheek. They were nothing like the parents of her childhood. They looked so at one together, so at peace.

It didn't mean they had forgotten about her, of course. There would be good days and bad days, days when they could hardly get out of bed and days where they hardly thought about their estranged daughter at all. But today was one of the not-so-bad days and here, right now, they looked...

 _Happy,_ Harley decided; that's what they were. _Happy._

For Harley, that was enough, to see them happy. She'd almost forgotten what that felt like.

"Come on, babies," the young woman whispered, and turned the dogs away. "Let's go home."

With a soft whimper, as if wondering why they had been dragged so far for no reason at all, the pair followed after her, as the trio slipped away through the heavy rain.

When they returned to the apartment, Harley dried the dogs off well with an old towel and hid it in one of the disused rooms so there would be no suspicion, chaining the pair back up and giving each of them a loving fuss before returning upstairs. There were no sounds from Nightwing as she'd worked; she hoped that he was asleep.

Harley snuck back into the apartment and showered as soon as she stepped through the door, washing away the smell of petrichor and wet dog. As the water flowed through her hair, the red and black dyes which tainted her ends beginning to run free, she thought again of all that had happened since she'd woken up this morning. Her thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the front door; she decided she'd surprise Joker, turning off the shower and slipping into her red satin housecoat, wet hair streaming down her back as she leaned up against the bathroom door to greet him with a smile.

"Hey, Puddin'."

When he looked at her, his eyes were like fire. Harley knew in an instant to run.

She slammed the bathroom door to and twisted the lock tight before he had a chance to grab for her. His white fists pounded against the door, and he was yelling, screaming, roaring at her, and it was like being in a nightmare all over again. A gunshot fired and Harley screamed as it came through the door and hit the sink, cracking the ceramic; she crouched down low in the bathtub to avoid any futher rounds, two more of which came. One hit a pipe, and the sink began to sputter with life, water showering all over the room in sporadic bursts.

"I'm not going to hurt you, darling!" Joker screamed, but his tones were hardly convincing. "We just need to talk!"

"I haven't done anything!" Harley insisted with a scream, wondering in fact which of the many things she'd done today he had discovered and was enraged over.

"Come out here and we can talk about it!"

 _Not gonna happen,_ Harley thought, but was wiser than to say outloud. She heard his patience run out with a growl and just like that he was shooting the lock out of the door, _one two three four_ bullets, and as quickly as she had shut him out he was inside. The door swung open on its hinges.

"Oh, look at this mess!" Joker yelled, throwing his arms out as water from the burst pipe showered over him, "now we're gonna need a new _sink!"_

Harley didn't have time to speak before his hand was in her hair and he was dragging her out of the bath, out of the bathroom, out of the apartment and down, down, down the stairs, screaming all the way, and here they were in the reception area of the hotel, and now in the diner area, and the dogs were barking over and over and over but knew brave enough than to approach Joker, and as he dragged Harleen to the door of the basement he gave Bud a sharp kick in the ribs which set him screaming, and he all but threw Harley down the basement stairs as he paused to turn on the lights, and lo and behold, Nightwing was gone.

"Care to explain," Joker said, his tone frightfully light, "why my prized bird is no longer in his cage?!"

"I ain't done nothin'!" Harley pleaded, backing up against the wall and stepping on something sticky and painfully sharp as she did so.

 _"DOUBLE NEGATIVE!"_ Joker roared at the top of his lungs, "which means you have done something, you little...!"

He reached down and swept something up off the floor; Harley saw that it was a piece of glass, more specifically a piece of glass from the bottle of soda she had been drinking from earlier. She was suddenly aware of the sickly sweet smell in the air.

"Tell me, is there anyone else who might have found their way down here with the lack of brain cells to actually _enjoy_ such an abomination as grape-flavoured soda?" Joker said, pressing himself into Harley and holding the piece of glass close to her face, as though he might slice her cheek open with it at any moment. Harley saw the rest of the shattered glass on the floor, and saw how Nightwing had used the weaponized bottle to saw through his restraints, which lay torn to shreds on the ground, soaking in the sticky stain which was the last of her drink of choice.

"Puddin', I-"

"Don't call me _Puddin'!"_

He brought the shard of glass up to her throat, pressing hard.

"I didn't mean to!" Harley said, bubbling with panic. "Please, boss, I didn't even know he was down here, I heard the dogs barking and I just-"

"You _idiot!"_ Joker roared, "you've ruined everything! That slimy leather-clad greaseball was my main event! And now he's gone, because of _you!"_

Harley closed her eyes tight. If this was it, at least in his anger he might make it quick.

She heard him sigh. The glass came away from her throat and he brushed the hand through his hair.

"Still," he said, "no matter. There's still plenty of fun to be had at your little party. We may have to postpone things, though, now that I've given away too much to that greasy little nobody. We don't want the Bat _too_ hot on our tail."

Joker began to lead the girl back up the steps, past the whimpering hounds.

"So... you're not angry with me?"

"Oh, I'm angry with you, Harley," he said, squeezing her side a little too tightly, "but I'm saving it up until after the party. I want you looking your best for my big day- wouldn't want the bruises to spoil the photographs!"

Harley swallowed hard, but didn't say anything.

"It'll be a night to remember, I'll tell you that much. Oh, this is going to be so much _fun!"_

~oOo~

Dick Grayson limped through the dark streets, very near on the verge of collapse. He had managed to avoid any interactions with passers-by so far- he couldn't afford to accept their help and risk the police taking him in- so alone he trudged on, very nearly at his destination. When he finally reached the gates of the manor house, it took nearly all his strength to reach up and press the bell. At the touch of his finger on the buzzer, knowing that he was at last where he belonged, the last of Richard's strength left him and he collapsed to the ground.

When his eyes opened again, he was in a familiar room, lying in a bed. It was a bed he hadn't slept in since his teenage years, though the decor had changed; the posters on the walls were of someone else's interests, and the walls had been painted black rather than the light blue he remembered from childhood. The photographs on the walls were familiar, but it was not he who stood next to his guardian in them, but another boy, a younger boy.

"Jason," Dick murdered, and finally began to remember how he had come to be here.

"Dick?" a voice said desperately, and he realised that Bruce was here by his side, sat by him on the bed, willing him back into consciousness. "Dick, are you alright?!"

"I have the medical box," Alfred's was saying, and suddenly he was there too, placing something heavy on the bed and beginning to pull from it bandages and tonics and all manner of supplies. With Bruce's help the man who had always been like a grandfather to Richard began to cut him out of his bloodied clothes, and then ease him out of his suit; the kevlar stuck to him in places and he cried out as it was peeled away, revealing to his guardians a canvas of bruises and a series of bite marks which could only have come from the jaws of a very powerful animal. As Bruce began to clean up the wounds, reassuring his ward all the time that he was safe, Alfred reached for the telephone.

Dick really looked around, beginning to come to.

"You kept his room the same."

Bruce looked away, as though embarrassed. "You think I shouldn't have."

"No, not at all," Dick said.

"It's your room, too," Bruce said. "You'll always have a place here, Dick. When I brought Jason in, he was never meant to replace you. The two of you could have been brothers."

"I'd have liked that," Dick said quietly. For the first time, perhaps ever, they really talked about Jason.

"He was a good kid," Dick said sorrowfully.

"Yeah," Bruce said.

"He could have been great."

Bruce nodded his head. "He could have been. If it wasn't for that animal."

"Almost had him, you know," Dick said weakly, almost with a smile. "I was so close-"

"Hush now," Bruce said, swimming with heartache and relief but feeling, more than anything, like a failure. "I've been trying to find you," he felt the need to express, "Barry's been helping me, we were so close..."

"What have I told you, old man," Dick wheezed, the smile there now, "I can look after myself."

"Not anymore," Bruce said, his voice firm with resolve. "Not anymore. From now on, we do this together."

Dick squeezed his hand. At last, it felt as though his family were one again.

"Together," he said.

"Barbara, "He's home," Alfred called down the phone, tears in his eyes as he watched Bruce, the way he clung on tight to his son, burying his head into his shoulder. Dick brought his arm around his father and the two embraced.

"My God, thank God... he's home."


	8. Chapter Eight: The Harlequin

**Chapter Eight:**

 **The Harlequin**

"No peeking," Joker insisted as he lead Harley into the room, his hands held over her eyes. She giggled in excitement, being lead along through the corridors.

She heard Penguin's voice, bursting with fake excitement.

"Oi oi, here she comes!" Cobblepot said, touching her arm fondly, "happy birthday, love. We're all hoping you enjoy your present; it's cost more than my life's worth, so you bloody better-"

"Shut up, Oswald," Joker said coarsely, and Harley felt him push the smaller man away.

"Very good sir," Cobblepot said through thinly veiled hatred, adding a chuckle for good measure. Harley heard a door open, felt her heels take to hard floor rather than carpet, and there was a hush which could only be artificial silence.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," Oswald said to the unseen crowds, "I, Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, take great pleasure in welcoming you all to the new and improved... _Harlequin Lounge!"_

A cheer from the crowd.

"Happy birthday, Harley Quinn!" Joker called, and suddenly all around were cheers; Joker's hands left her face and Harley opened her eyes to find that the entire Iceberg Lounge had been refurbished in her image; every wall was papered with harlequin check in black-and-red, black and red chandeliers graced the ceilings, and all of the upholstery and decor had been replaced to match with the new colour scheme. in the centre of the lounge, a glass lounge had been constructed, the roof of which housed a beautiful glass fountain of her likeness, the water dancing over the figure's glassy skin, running down the glass walls of the lounge and draining away into grates positioned below each of them in a constant cycle. Through the blur of the streaming water Harley could see that the private lounge housed a beautiful five-tier cake in red-and-black; she squealed with joy and wrapped her arms around Joker, who was dressed in a brand new suit with a red-and-black corsage. He chuckled as she hugged him- _oh Puddin' thank you thank you thank_ yo _-o-o-u-u-_ u-u _-_ and kissed him on the mouth.

"Happy birthday, my deluded darling. Or should I say your _rebirth_ day. It's been a year, my dazzling doll- well, just over, but we couldn't have the Bat's little sidekick spoiling our plans by blabbing, could we? One year since we kissed that nuthouse goodbye. Oh, how the time flies by!"

Sally was there with his twin sons, and all the Falcone's, too, and every other unsavoury character Harley had ever made her acquaintance. There were a pile of presents at tall as she was, and though she darted for them, Joker grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and lead her to the glass VIP lounge, along with the heads of the two crime families and their closest relatives.

"Time for that later, Princess," Joker said, his voice a little on edge though his smile remained. He allowed her to cut the cake and eat the first slice (and the second, and the third), he allowed her to open her presents from the Maroni's and the Falcone's (there went the fourth slice), and Penguin's too- a set of Italian crystal wine glasses that Joker said they could have fun smashing later- and then released her to the dance floor to relieve her boundless sugar-rush energy. Harley was having a wonderful time until she tired of dancing with the hired pro's, feeling a little alone in spite of everyone being gathered here for her. She realised that, truly, she didn't have a single friend in the room. She looked to the bar; Candy was not working tonight, but she was delighted to spot Selina; she rushed over for one of Kitty's custom cocktails, only to be spotted by Frost who confiscated it, reminding her that she was not supposed to drink without the Joker's permission. Selina mixed her a virgin drink and apologised as she was dragged away to serve someone else, so Harley drifted back to the glass VIP lounge to find that Joker had turned her party into a full-blown business meeting.

 _"Puddin'!"_ she cried as she stepped in, outraged, "this is supposed to be my party!"

"Don't be a brat," Joker said shortly, going quickly back to his discussion with the two family heads. "Go and fetch us all a brandy, why don't you."

Enraged, Harley stomped to the bar and refused to be served by anyone but Selina. Miss Kyle sauntered over, slick as a kitten in her dark velvet dress, and fixed the stroppy girl's hair.

"What's the matter, Harls? This is your party, you're supposed to be enjoying yourself."

Harley took a long sip of someone else's drink.

"Phooey! He _said_ it was my party, but really it's just an excuse for a glorified business meeting. He wouldn't let me invite Jerry or even choose what dress I wore, and now he's sent me over here to get _drinks,_ can you believe it? Like I'm some kind of a..." she paused, reading Selina's expression, noting the way her brow had raised. "Well, you know."

"Maybe this will cheer you up," Selina said, "there's a friend here to see you."

"I ain't allowed to have friends no more," Harley sighed into her glass; Selina lifted her chin and pointed in the direction of the woman who was waiting for her.

"You'll want to keep this one. Go over there."

When Harley saw who was waiting, she braved Joker's wrath and slid away. Selina gave her a nod of encouragement, and when she has left the bar, she slid out back and to the side entrance, the fire escape which was never used. When she opened the door, and saw what the two men waiting there were wearing, her eyes came alive with feline intensity.

"You're wearing the suits?!" she hissed, pulling them quickly in through the back door before anyone could spot them, "are you _serious?"_

"We'll be well out of sight," Batman insisted, turning off the red lights within his visor. "We know what we're doing, Selina."

"I sure hope so, or all of our heads will be on the block," the barmaid said, "these criminals are not to be taken lightly."

"You call them criminals like you're not one of them," Batman said, "Remind me why you agreed to helping us in the first place, Miss Kyle?"

"Oh please, embezzling cash from a former mob boss can hardly be called a crime. Just remember that, I _am_ helping you. You wouldn't even have known they were changing the date of this sorry affair if it wasn't for me. You put these crooks away and we'll all be better off, not just me. Besides, I'm putting the money to good use."

"Like Armani dresses, I see," Nightwing chimed in, giving her a smirk. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"It's Westwood, actually."

"Bite me."

"Maybe I will..."

"Enough, both of you," the Bat said, and emplored Selina to show them to their hiding place. "We've got work to do."

~oOo~

The woman in the booth turned to watch Harley closely as she approached. Underneath the strobe lights, her skin glowed a pale, ethereal green. Her red hair shone like copper, and her red lips blossomed with a smile.

"Doctor Quinzel," she said, her voice a calm ocean, "fancy seeing you here."

Harley sat down opposite her, stunned to find her here.

"Pammy? Wow, you look..."

"I know," the woman said, and leaned back in her seat. Her round breasts swelled beneath the feather-light fabric of her barely-there dress. As she sunk into the booth, light bounced off her collarbones and danced about her long pale throat.

"So do you."

Harley tugged at the hemline of her dress. "I heard you'd managed to get away during all of that Suddenly Seymour crap at Arkham, but nobody's seen ya since."

"I've been reconnecting with my roots," she said, that smile blossoming again. "I've heard all about what you've been up to, Miss Quinn. Getting the life beaten out of you by that Clown, if I'm not mistaken."

Harley looked down, embarrassed. "...What are you doing here?"

"You saved me once," she said, her voice dripping like dew from her lips. "I've come to returning the favour."

She stood, her long body filling the frame of the booth's doorway; she pulled across the gold chain curtain as though to give them a little privacy. Instead of sitting back down in her chair, she instead sat against Harley, facing her, one knee pressed between the girl's thighs, the other supporting her on the bench. Harley stared at her open mouth, stunned.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

"Shhh," Isley insisted, bringing her face closer to Harley's, her red-gold hair a curtain shielding them from the outside world, and she pressed her full lips against Harley's, a slow kiss; and then she was breathing into her, exhaling cold hair down into Harley's throat, her hands coming up against her arms as she pressed herself into her. When Isley pulled away, Harley had her eyes closed, her breathing was shallow, and she seemed not to understand what had just happened.

"What did you do to me?" Harley asked breathily, feeling different, somehow more alive.

"Let's just say I don't like being indebted to a carbon-based ape such as yourself," Pamela said, her almond eyes smiling. She leaned in closer to Harley, so that they shared the same air once more. "And now that clown will never be able to lay a finger on you again."

She leaned in once more and kissed the girl once again, her tongue flitting across her bottom lip for half a moment.

"When you decide you've had enough of that clown," Isley breathed into her ear, her nails digging ever so slightly into Harley's upper arms, "you know where to find me."

And just like that, she was gone. Isley peeled herself from atop Harley's frame and sashayed through the gold curtains, looking back for half a moment to give the girl a slow wink. Harley sat breathless, unsure, trying to process what had just happened.

"Yhatzee," she said, and let out a long exhale.

When Harley wondered back to the glass lounge, she failed to sense that there was a tension in the room. She bounced into the room demanding that Joker come and dance with her; when he brushed her off she only laughed.

"Oh, come on Puddin', just one dance-!"

She pulled at his arm and, to both of their surprise, pulled Joker straight to his feet. He eyed her in shock for a moment, looking at the arm in her grip as though it were not his own.

"Step outside with me for a moment, darling," Joker said, still smiling. A stillness came over the air as he lead her outside of the glass box. He lead her into the middle of the dancers so that they could not be seen by those in the VIP lounge. Harley thought she was getting her dance and began calling to the DJ the name of the song she wanted to be played, but Joker took a hold of one of her pigtails and pulled down sharply on it.

"We're not dancing, idiot," he growled into her ear. "Listen up. This is an important night, more important than your little party or your even littler brain could comprehend. I'm planting the final seeds in getting the Maroni's and the Falcone's to send each other to their shallow graves. They are this close, _this close_ from blowing each other's heads off at the next opportunity. My patience is wearing painfully thin, and if you screw this up for me..."

"But Puddin'," Harley said, leaning into the hold on his hair to relieve a little of the pain, "I know you like your fancy-shmancy schemes, and maybe it's just me being stupid again, but... well, if you really want them gone so badly, why don't ya just blow their heads off yerself?"

He leaned in as though her were about to snap at her again, but stopped himself at the last second, looking suddenly very thoughtful.

"Harley," he said, looking honestly surprised, "I think you just had your first good idea."

Harley smiled up at him, still a little unsure. Joker would his hand around her ponytail, pulling her in closer.

"Kiss me," he said. She did as she was told, letting his tongue wonder past her lips.

"You taste like roses," he noted nonchalantly, taking her by the hand and dragging her back to the lounge. He paused outside, and as he pressed up against her, she felt the imprint of the gun inside his jacket.

"The pimple's come to a head, Harley," he said, buzzing with excitement. "I just can't wait to watch it burst."

He opened the glass door and lead her inside. The six most powerful men of the Maroni and Falcone families watched the Clown as he reentered, not taking his seat againbut rather standing by the door; Frost glanced in his direction, and Harley knew then that things were about to get ugly.

"Gentlemen," Joker announced, "I have a joke for you."

No one said a word. The mob men stared in silence.

"You see, there's these two loonies sharing a room in a nuthouse, and the Doctor comes to visit them. The one crazy guy is hammering at an imaginary piece of wood, and the other is hanging upside down from the ceiling. The Doc says to the first nut-job, _"what are you doing?"_

He says, _"I'm a carpenter."_

The Doc says, _"Why is your friend hanging from the ceiling?"_

 _"Oh, he's a whack job,"_ says the first madman. _"He thinks he's a light-bulb!"_

So the Shrink asks him, _"Shouldn't you tell him to get down from there?"_

And the loon says, _"What, and work in the dark?"_ _Ha!"_

Nobody laughed. Joker did, of course, but only a little. As his laughter petered out, his hand wandered to the inside of his jacket. It was a wonder none of them saw it coming.

"Hoo hoo... ha, ha... hoo. ...Well, you can't please em all."

His gun was out in a second, Frost's moving in perfect symmetry, so in tune was he with the Joker's thought processes. First they shot the family heads, Salvatore and Carmine going down first, then it was Falcone's two men, then Pino and Umberto, the twins, who had both reached into their own jackets; it seemed perhaps Sally was not so naive as he had pretended to be. He was dead all the same, just like the rest of the men in the glass lounge, and not a bullet had penetrated the transparent unit.

Harley looked through the waterfall to see that every dancer had pulled a weapon, and in moments they began firing at every man with allegiances to the two leading crime families; Harley realised as the bullets flew that the VIP lounge must be bulletproof, though the water feature above it was not; great glass chunks were shot out of the Harlequin statue, and as Joker enjoyed the carnage from the safety of his self-made prison, he laughed loudly.

"You were right, Harley!" Joker called, pulling her to his side, "this is _way_ more fun!"

People fled for the exits, and Harley saw that Selina was amongst them. In the chaos many of the lights had been shot out, and what had only moments ago been a wondorous gala was now an empty horrorshow, with only the so-called Dancers left alive in amongst the bodies which were scattered across the confetti-covered floor.

Oswald came stumbling in from the bar, his hands holding his head.

"What the bloody hell?!" He roared, "Clown! What have you done to my bloody club?!"

"I'm redecorating!" Joker laughed, _"again!",_ and shot at Oswald until he dived down low and fled the room as quickly as possible.

Joker kissed Harley on the cheek. "I've said it once and I'll say it again; _Happy Birthday, Harley Quinn!"_

"Sir, we should leave," Frost said, cool and collected as ever. Even though he had not expected things to go the way they did, he was still unphased, ever adaptable. "This place will be crawling with pigs in minutes."

"I'm a sucker for bacon," Joker grinned, reloading his handgun. "And just think what Batsy is going to say when he gets here. Oooh, is he ever gonna be raving! I love him when he's rilled!"

He paused to snap his fingers in front of Harley's face, noticing her vacant shock. "Earth to Miss Quinn. What'dya say? How about we hang on for a proper shoot-out? We haven't had one of those since we busted out of Arkham! I told you you'd have a chance to get your hands bloody for a change."

"Not tonight she won't," said a gloomy voice; the trio of survivors inside the glass box looked up to see a dark figure on the roof, his hand pressing a gooey substance to it; there was the click of a button and suddenly the whole ceiling of the glass prison blew, sending water and glass and pieces of the fountain raining down, along with the man who had set the explosive. The Bat landed directly on top of Johnny Frost, perhaps deciding him to be his most formidable foe, and punched him hard enough to knock him out cold. Joker's laughter got louder, delighted at the appearance of his arch nemesis. Harley was not so pleased.

"Oh, will ya look who it is!" she yelled, close to tears at this point. "What do you want, Batfreak?! Come to spoil my party?!"

"Party's over," a voice said from the other side of the bulletproof glass, and Harley turned to see Nightwing there. Joker growled at the sight of him.

 _"You,"_ Joker said, pointing a finger in his direction, "were supposed to be tonight's entertainment."

He reached down underneath the table and pulled free a crowbar.

"Look, I've come prepared! You were supposed to be sat here, _right here,_ and I was going to let Harley bash your brains in! A little blast from the past, Bats, get your blood back up! Because let's be honest, you haven't really been _trying_ to catch me, have you? Too scared to face up to the past, I'd wager. If you had been giving it your all, living up to that _world's greatest pointy-eared detective_ shtick, I'd be back in Arkham right now."

"Tonight you will be."

Joker repeated his words in his best gravelly imitation. _"Tonight you will be. Grrrrr._ Come on then, Batsy; get over here and show me a little love. I've missed you, I've missed you, I've missed you."

The Bat advanced on the Clown, who swung at him with the crowbar; it caught the Bat in the shin, and as he dipped to avoid another blow he in turn slammed the clown in the side; he went crashing into the wall, laughing as he crumpled, but was back on his feet in moments.

"I guess that means you've missed me too!"

Harley and Nightwing looked at each other through the glass. Harley tried for a smile.

"I'm glad you're alive, Night-shite."

"You have got to stop calling me that. Did you leave that bottle there on purpose?" He said, trying to hide the hope in his voice.

Harley grimaced, one eye on the battle raging between the clown and the bat.

"If I say yes, will you go a little easy on me?"

"I won't hurt you," he said, and opened the glass door to step through; Harley stood in front of him, the Bat and the Clown still going at it behind her.

"I'll try not to hurt you too bad, either. Pinky swear."

Dick's expression fell. "Harley," he said, "I am not going to fight you."

"Well, if you wanna get to them, you're gonna have to go through me."

Dick was stunned that she'd even suggest it. "I'd break you like a twig and you know it."

Harley thought of Ivy's words, of the way she'd easily pulled Joker to his feet earlier. Whatever Ivy had done to her, it was beginning to take effect. _That clown will never be able to lay a finger on you again._

She could feel the power in her now, that gift from her botanical friend. _Nor anyone else, I'd wager._

"I'm not going to hurt you," Nightwing repeated, anxious to get to the bat, becoming impatient. Harley lifted her leg into a high kick with an ease that amazed her and kicked the vigilante right in the jaw, sending him sprawling; she marvelled at her sudden abilities as he recovered, holding his jaw and gawping at her in surprise as he got to his feet.

Harley hardened her stance and beckoned him forwards.

"I know you aren't."

The fighting went on for quite some time. Isley's gifts had bestowed upon Harley a new strength and a restoration of her gymnastic abilities, heightened to the point where she matched the skill of Nightwing almost effortlessly. She was no trained fighter, but this was no fight; it was a dance, and they both knew every step. Besides which, he wasn't trying to hurt her, only restrain her long enough to get a pair of cuffs on her or knock her out cold, but with her heightened abilities she was too slippery even for him to catch. Harley laughed in euphoria as she danced about the room, tumbling and spinning in tandem with the vigilante, while her Puddin' and the Bat fought a similar though far more brutal battle. Things were turning in the vigilante's favour until the ground began to rumble.

The sudden earthquake took each of the fighters by surprise. By the time they realised it was not an earthquake but something else entirely, it was too late; great green vines burst forth from the ground, and in the midst of all of them a great purple pod, which peeled back to reveal mother nature herself; Isley, naked but for a decoration of leaves and covered in a thin sap, emerged as though being born again.

"Sorry, boys," she said, her voice like treacle, "but this is Harley's party. And I don't think either of you received an invitation."

The thick green vines wrapped around the Bat and his accomplice in seconds, so tight there was little they could do to stop them; Harley watched as another wrapped its way around Joker, this one not just holding him in place but its tail curling about its neck, constricting the life from him. He started to laugh, as he always did, and very quickly he began to turn purple.

"No no no, Pammy, what are you doing?!" Harley cried out, when she had been so enthused only moments before, bouncing over the vines in an attempt to reach the woman.

"Pest control," Isley hissed, and with the flick of her hand the vines around the clown's neck tightened. The laughing stopped, as there was no air left for which he could make a sound.

"No, Red, please!" Harley screeched, pulling at her friend's arm, "please, don't!"

"You deserve better, Harley," Isley said, "haven't I shown you that you deserve better?"

"You can't!" Harley begged, and her eyes were filled with tears. Ivy watched her for a long moment.

Very slowly, her grip on the Joker released. Frost, still disorientated, was getting to his feet; Joker dropped to the ground with a gasp and the crack of a laugh, and Frost helped him upwards. Still holding his gun, Frost half-carried his semi-conscious boss to the exit, and even as Harley shouted out to her Puddin', his barely-there laughter dancing on the air, he was disappearing.

Gone.

Harley stared at the doorway where he had been. Her legs would not seem to carry her after him.

"Puddin'?"

Isley's hand came to rest on her shoulder.

"It's okay, Harley," she said. "You're free of that madman now. You can come with-"

 _shhfffft._

There was a whistle on the air, and suddenly Isley dropped to the floor.

"Red?!" Harley said, and kneeled down beside her friend to find that there was a dart stuck in her neck; Harley pulled it quickly out, but already Isley's eyes were beginning to fog over, rendered into unconsciousness by the powerful tranquilizer; Harley looked up to see that the Bat had freed his arm of her vine's hold, and had another dart pursed between his lips-

 _shhfffft!_

The sharp pain hit Harley exactly where Isley had been hit, and she managed to yank the dart from her own neck before losing her balance.

"Aww, _gross,"_ Harley murmured, wavering on her feet before slumping to the ground. All around them the great green vines were beginning to retreat, uncoiling themselves from their vigilante victims; Nightwing, who had been suspended upside down, landed with a graceful flip upon both feet and began to approach the two women, the Bat following closley behind. Harley watched through dazed eyes, her body immobile, as the Bat handcuffed Isley and lifted her barely-conscious form into his arms; she hung limply there, her long red hair cascading down from her beautiful head.

Harley gave a moan of frustration as Nightwing knelt beside her. She blinked at the impeeding darkness, drawn towards the tug of sleep, feeling the vigilante's hand coming up beneath her head.

"You're alright," he said, and already she could see the bruising forming where she had caught him badly in their fight. He was holding her now in his arms, and lifted her up into them, carrying her through the ruination of the club and towards the exit. Sirens were screaming outside, and she could here Oswald's distinct accent through the doors, ranting and raving.

 _"That clown!"_ He was yelling, _"I'll have 'im! Thinks this is funny, does he?! That bloody clown!"_

"Worst... birthday... ever," Harley said, struggling hard to keep her eyes open. Nightwing's mask had been cracked during the fight, and he had pulled it off in his frustration. Harley stared into his face, his eyes blackened with paint, and spoke truly to him.

"I shoulda let you out," she said as she drifted into blackness, staring up into his face. "Shoulda... woulda... coulda. I wanted to... but I was just too scared, ya know?"

He looked down at her. Reaching up to him, she pinched the end of his nose gently between her middle fingers and pushed her thumb there.

"Gotcha... nose," she said, and almost giggled, but did not have the strength to. Nightwing smiled, pulling the favric of his undershirt up over his nose and mouth to conceal his identity once they passed through to the outside world.

"Go to sleep, Harley," Dick said, with a sadness and a fondness all mixed as one.

Harley closed her eyes, and her dreams were peaceful.


	9. Epilogue: The Belle of Belle Reve

**Epilogue:**

 **The Belle of Belle Reve**

"Well well well," Lyle Bolton said as Harleen and Pamela were brought in to be transferred, "if it isn't Gotham's very own merry murderesses."

"Bite me, John Law," Harley spat in his direction, as he took her firmly by the arm and began leading her down towards Arkham's maximum security.

"How the mighty have fallen," Bolton smirked, squeezing tighter than he needed to. "Still, they tell me you've got special powers now, is that right, Doctor Quinzel? Golly. I mean, not _real_ powers like Isley here, but still... you can do cartwheels. That's something."

"When these tranquillizers wear off I'll give you a demonstration," Harley growled, and Bolton laughed.

"Not while you're in this prison."

"Hey, it ain't a prison," Harley chirped. "Arkham's a rest and recuperation type a' place."

"It's an insane asylum-"

"So what, we're all a little wacky-!"

"-For the _criminally_ insane," Pamela added.

Harley folded her arms. "You're supposed to be on my side, Red. Besides, I ain't no criminal."

Isley rolled her eyes. "You've spent the last year fooling around with the Joker."

"So what? I might have smacked a few people with a hammer now and again but I ain't never killed nobody." _Not on purpose, anyway._ "I'll do my time and come outta here a well-rounded citizen."

"The day that happens, I'll eat my shoe," Bolton chuckled.

"Hope you choke on it," Harley sneered.

"No matter. You won't be staying here much longer, either of you. No, we're quite glad to be getting rid of the pair of you. You're being moved to an ARGUS facility tomorrow," Bolton continued, "Belle Reve, where they stick the real crazies. You'll fit right in. Then you'll be someone else's problem; good friend of mine from the academy runs the place, actually. Hunter Griggs. He'll take real good care of the two of you."

"We can take care of ourselves," Pamela reassured him.

The two women were given adjacent cells, with an impenetrable glass wall at their front so that they could be closely monitored by the security team.

"How's it feel, Quinzel, to be bolted up in this place?" Bolton asked. "But you never thought you'd be this side of the glass. Must feel pretty out of your comfort zone, I'd imagine."

"On the contrary, Lyle," Harley said, making sure her smile was sickeningly bright. "It feels just like coming home."

The next morning, both women were awake early. The effects of the tranquillizers had worn off and they were both back to feeling normal again; or in Harley's case, better than normal. She spent the best part of the morning bouncing around her cell, marvelling at her new abilities and practising skills she never knew she could possess.

"This ain't gonna wear off, is it, Pammy? Because I _love it!"_

"The effects are permanent as far as I'm aware," Isley said, "but it's not a definite art. We'll make quite the team, you and I."

"Yeah," Harley sighed. "I miss my Puddin'. Dou think he'll come and get me?"

Isley rolled her eyes. "Forget about that clown. You're with me now, craziness. What on Earth do you see in him, anyhow?"

"What can I say; there's just something about green hair and a purple suit that really does it for me. And I'm a sucker for a smile."

"I don't understand you humans at all sometimes."

"Hey, you're a human too!"

"Used to be."

Harley folded her arms across her chest. "You say you're all lovey-dovey with the plants, that they're yer children and all that jazz, so like, what'dya eat? You can't eat yer own children."

"No, I don't eat my children."

"So does that mean you live of just meat? What are you, like an anti-vegan or something? That's so gross."

"Nature takes care of me," Ivy said, and Harley gave her an unconvinced look. "I photosynthesise."

"Balogney."

"It's true!"

"I don't believe it. So what else can ya do, do ya grow lichen if you don't shave?"

Pamela exhaled loudly through her nose. "You're terribly annoying at times."

"Well, you'll have to get used to it, Pammy. We could be cell buddies for quite some time... but who am I kidding? My Puddin' will be along soon enough to get me outta here. If I ask really nice I bet he'll let me bring you along too."

"I don't need any help from that demented Clown. Do you really believe he'll come and save you, like a night in shining armour? Get real. How can you love that man?"

"What can I say? I'm a sucker for a smile. And he's not all bad, not really." She felt a sorrow in her heart, and she thought of the times he had hurt her, and of the Batman, and of all the things she had suffered since she'd first laid eyes on that enigma of a man. For one fleeting moment, she felt more Harleen than Harley.

"You know," she said, sitting back down on the side of the bed, "sometimes I think it's better to be hated by him than loved."

Footsteps began down the corridor. Curious, both women came close to the glass to see a large dark-skinned woman approaching them, her hair cropped short to her head. She held up a badge to them, which Harley didn't get a chance to read before it was swiped away.

"Well, isn't this a pretty picture. You must be Pamela Isley," she said to the red-head, before turning to the beaming blond, "and Harleen Quinzel."

"Actually, I prefer Harley-"

"Shut up. My name is Amanda Waller. I work for the secret services, ARGUS division. Ladies, I have a job offer for you."

Harley and Pamela looked across at one another. With their silent agreement made, Harley threw the woman a wink and a blinding smile.

"Keep talking, lady."

~oOo~

Joker had not moved in days. He lay back on the floor of the now empty apartment beside an empty bottle of whiskey and a glass tumbler, wallowing in his own misery. He could not go out for fear of the Bat, he was suffering terribly from his near-asphyxiation, and he had lost his Harley.

He did not move from where he lay as he heard Frost's polished footsteps clip across the hardwood floor. He reached up and waved a hand in the air.

"Tell me some good news, Frosty," he croaked, his voice weak. The bruising was still fresh.

"It's more complex than we thought," Frost said.

"That doesn't sound like good news to me."

Frost was being tactful. "We have to be patient with this one, Joker."

"Do I look like a man," Joker said, as though it took every last ounce of energy just to say the words, "who exercises the virtue of patience?"

Frost did not answer that. "It's a brand new black site in Louisianna. Designed specifically to contain those with... _special_ abilities. Since your Harley's encounter with the plant woman, she fits into that category."

Joker let out a growl. Frost waited for it to pass before he continued.

"They're putting them to work, assembling a team."

"Work?! What sort of work?"

"Off-the-books assignments. Things the government consider too sticky to get their hands dirty with. It's dangerous work. They've taken to calling them the... umm..."

Joker sat up suddenly. In all the years he had known him, he had not once heard Johnny Frost falter.

"Spit it out."

Frost swallowed hard.

"...The Suicide Squad."

Joker's hand curled into a fist and _BAM!_ He slammed it down on top of the empty tumbler of whiskey, smashing the glass into myriad pieces. It wasn't long before the bleeding started; he raised his arm in front of his face and stared at the blood as it dripped down over his cold, white hand.

"Bring the car around," the clown said after a long while, his green eyes fixated on the pooling red. "We're going for a drive."

* * *

 **AN: Thanks for reading, guys! It was fun to do a little post-Therapy spin-off, leading us right up to Suicide Squad territory. I hope you've all enjoyed the ride, and thanks for the reviews, they mean so much!**

 **Love and best wishes,**

 _ **PuddinFreakyStyle**_


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